an Que wolfs 

FAVOURITES 

/\NIMALS I HAVE KNOWN 




SIR ROBERT 
BADEN-POWELL 

BT 




Book : Mj±? 



AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 



AN OLD WOLF'S 
FAVOURITES 

Animals I have Known 



BY 

SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, Bt. 

AUTHOR OF 
"what SCOUTS CAN do," "boy SCOUTS BEYOND THE SEAS," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1922 






-itnV^ 






CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. About Moose Hunting 

II. Wild Boar Training. 

III. My Friend the Panther . 

IV. My Pet Elephants . 
V. Catching a Jackal . 

VI. How to Hide . 

VII. A Yarn About West Africa 

VIII. Horses 1 have Owned 

IX. My Mare " Hagarene " . 

X. Canoe Travelling 

XI. Wild Birds and Pet Birds 

XII. Who is Rigel ? . 

XIII. Fire-Lighting by Natives 



AOB 
II 

17 

22 
27 

39 

46 
56 

72 

84 

95 

IOI 

114 

121 



INTRODUCTION 



ANIMAL FRIENDS OF MINE 

In an out-of-the-way corner of my garden I have 
a wooden hut furnished with Camp furniture and 
a few trophies of hunting in far countries. Here 
I love to sit and read jungle stories — when I get 
the time for it. 

On the walls of this hut are boards with lists of 
names on them ; they are Rolls of Honour. 

But whose names do you think they are ? 

They are the names of pet animals I have owned, 
chiefly horses, but there are also some pigs and 
dogs and a panther. Against the names are shown 
the years in which I owned them. 

Here is one of the panels : 



SOUTH AFRICA 


TlTWILLOW . . 1887 


Cigar 




• » 


Lucifer . 




ti 


The Tart 




» >» 


Rosetta 




» >» 


Toulon . 




, 1888 


Bachelor 




» »» 


Colleen . 




» »» 


Mr. Brown , 




, 1889 


Black Prince 




, 1901 


Orara . 




» »* 



io INTRODUCTION 

In the following chapters in this book you will 
find stories about some of those who appear in 
this Roll of Honour, and you will then under- 
stand why I like to have those names set up 
where I can read them and remind myself of the 
happy times we had together. 

You see, an animal has been made by God just 
as you have been. He is therefore a fellow- 
creature. He has not got the power of speaking 
our language, but he can feel pleasure or pain 
just as we can, and he can feel grateful to anyone 
who is kind to him. 

A Scout, as you know, is always helpful to 
people who are crippled or blind or deaf and 
dumb ; so it is up to us to be good also to these 
dumb fellow-creatures of ours and to make them 
our friends by being friends to them. 

And it is well worth while, because they become 
very true and faithful friends. 

Therefore I hope that, as a Cub, you will keep 
pets and get to know about birds and animals so 
that when you become a Scout you can win the 
Badge of " a Friend to Animals " and will one 
day become a Bird or Animal " Warden." 

You will be glad of it all your life, because you 
can always go on finding new and jolly friends 
among the birds and beasts around you who will 
love you and whom you will love. 

ROBERT BADEN-POWELL. 



AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 



CHAPTER I 

ABOUT MOOSE HUNTING 

In the woods of Canada live the Moose. These 
are great big stags, as tall as a horse and dreadfully 
ugly. They are great lanky animals, with big 
heavy horns and huge blobby noses. They are 
very cunning and very shy, and with their big 
ears they can hear the slightest sound a long way 
off. 

Like all deer, they can smell a man 
far away when the wind is blowing 
towards them, and they can also hear 
the slightest foot tread or a snapped 
twig ; so they are very difficult to 
approach. 

They bolt off into the forest the moment they 
think anybody is coming their way. 

So a hunter finds the best way to get near them 
is not to try walking up to them, but to call them. 

He does this by pretending to be a moose him- 
self, making a noise like the moose bellowing. 

ii 




A MOCCASIN* 



12 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

When a moose hears another one roaring it 
makes him angry, and he follows up the sound, 
eager to fight the one who is roaring. Even if he 
finds a river or a lake in his way it does not stop 
him. He plunges in and swims across in order 
to get at his enemy. 



MOOSE-CALLING 

I have often gone out moose-calling, not so 
much to shoot him as to have a chance of getting 

him to come and show 
himself. The best time 
for doing it is at night 
when the forest is all still 
and your call travels a 
long way. 

You cut a strip of bark 
off a birch-tree and roll it 
up in the shape of a mega- 
phone. Through this you 
imitate the grunt and roar 
that the moose makes. It 
is not unlike the lowing of a bull in England. 

But it does not do to stay too close to your camp 
to do this ; otherwise he will smell smoke, and 
will not come near you. But you creep out in 
your moccasins very quietly till you get to a nice 
quiet place in the woods. 

Moccasins are soft leather boots which are 
worn by the hunter in the backwoods. They are 
more like big leather socks without thick soles or 




CALLING THE MOOSE. 



ABOUT MOOSE HUNTING 



13 



nails to strike on stumps and stones and make a 
noise ; and you wear three or four pairs of thick 
socks inside them to prevent your feet from being 
bruised and jarred on the ground. As they are 
watertight, they are very warm and comfortable 
footgear for the hunter in Canada ; and when they 
are worn into holes, they can be much more easily 
mended than the ordinary stiff boots that you buy 
in a shop. 

The best way to call moose is to go out in your 




WAITING FOR THE MOOSE TO APPEAR. 

birch-bark canoe at night, because you can move 
across the calm waters absolutely silently, the 
drip of the water off your paddle being the only 
sound that is heard. But even that must be very 
slight if you don't want to frighten the animal. 

It is very hard work, sliding out over the dark 
water of the lake in the black shadows of the trees. 
When you get to a likely place you lie still, so that 
there is not a sound and not a ripple on the water. 

The stars are all reflected on the surface so 
clearly that you feel as though you were somehow 



14 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

floating in mid-air, with sky below as well as 
above you. 

Then, when all is still, you give out through 
your megaphone a gentle grunt or two which 
steals across the lake and echoes among the trees. 

" i'll fight you ! " 

Presently you let out a " moo " like a cow 
lowing. Then you put a bit of a snarl into it, and 
presently you bring out a real angry roar, as if to 
say : " Come on, you brute ! I'll fight you ! " 

Then there may come a distant bellow in reply, 
from far away in the woods, and this will be re- 
peated every now and again as the moose comes 
nearer, trying to find out the fellow who has 
challenged him ; or it may be that he won't 
answer by lowing, but will come silently through 
the forest, jolly angry, and meaning to kill his 
enemy when he finds him. 

Then you hear every now and then the " tack- 
tock " of his horns striking against ihe trees in 
passing, or the crack of sticks under his great hoofs. 

You gaze out into the dark shadows of the trees, 
and you think you see something move. Dead 
silence. You scarcely dare breathe. There is no 
moose anywhere. 

Then, again, as you strain your eyes into the 
darkness, you see a sort of shadowy something 
which certainly moves. There is a shadow on the 
water, and then out into the moonlight steps a 
great dark form. 



ABOUT MOOSE HUNTING 15 

Sometimes he is suspicious and shy. When he 
catches sight of you he springs back and lurches 
very heavily, but without making such a loud 
crashing as you might expect from him through 
the thick forest. 

If he is in a bad temper he will go for you, 
plunging into the water and swimming out to 
try to crash your canoe down with his horns and 
feet. The only thing then is to paddle for 
your life and get out of his way. This, in your 
light birch-bark canoe, is not difficult, and it is 
great fun to watch him circling round, still eager 
to catch you, but unable to overtake you. 

The moose often grows to a height of some- 
where between seven and eight feet at the 
shoulder. 

TIMID BY NATURE 

It is a very timid animal by nature, and usually 
makes off at the sight of a human being, but 
occasionally it becomes dangerous, and can inflict 
a very nasty wound with its great sharp hoofs. 
Often wolves are killed at a single blow, in this 
manner, by an angry moose. 

The moose travels at a trot, with immense 
strides, and when frightened can move at a 
tremendous gallop. 

When passing through a thick wood the moose 
carries its huge horns in a horizontal position, to 
prevent them from becoming entangled in the 
tree branches. 



16 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

Swamps and the margins of lakes are the 
favourite resorts of the moose, for the great 
animal is a splendid swimmer, and only good 
canoe paddlers are able to keep up with a moose. 




AS BIG AS A HORSE, AND DREADFULLY UGLY. 



In the winter the moose makes its meals from 
the small boughs of the birch and the willow 
trees. 

To be a good moose hunter is looked upon by 
the Indians as a great achievement. 



CHAPTER II 

WILD BOAR TRAINING 

I will spin you a yarn about Algernon. 

Algernon was very young, but a great friend 
of mine in India. He was an orphan ; at least, 
that was my notion of him. I found him away 
in the jungle without any parents, and, as they 
say in the police reports, " without any visible 
means of subsistence/ ' which, in other words, 
means he did not seem to be old enough to look 
after himself. 

So I brought him home with me and had him 
properly fed and looked after, and he soon grew 
up a strong and healthy youngster. He was as 
lively a young rascal as any Wolf Cub, and as 
good as any Cub at practising to make himself 
strong and active and clever — only he wasn't a 
Wolf Cub. He was a pig — a little wild boar. 
He lived loose in my garden and made his lair 
in a thick bush, from which he would sally out 
and scamper about the place when he thought 
that there was no danger ; but if he heard a 
sound, he would stop and stare and listen and 
then quietly slip away into his hiding-place till 
the coast was clear again. 
B 17 



18 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

There was an old tree stump around which 
he used to practise galloping and twisting and 
turning in a figure of eight, in order to teach 
himself to be quick and handy. 

He would come when I called him for food, 
but he came very shyly and suspiciously, and 





..A ./ 






IT IS NOT A NICE JOB TO FACE A WILD BOAR ON FOOT. 



would never let me catch hold of him, he was 
much too quick. If my servant, who was a native, 
gave him his food, he came more boldly and, as 
soon as the bowl was set down near him, he would 
rush at the man and try to cut his bare legs with 
his tiny tusks — the ungrateful little beggar ! 

This always made the native run away, and 
when the little brute found it paid in this way he 



WILD BOAR TRAINING 



*9 



went on doing it as he grew older ; and as his 
tusks grew bigger and more able to do harm, the 
natives began to grow all the more afraid of him. 

BECOMES VERY DANGEROUS 

When a boar is full grown he becomes very 
dangerous. He comes out of the jungle at night 
and he goes about grubbing up the crops and 
doing immense damage. 

If a man working in the fields sees him and 




tries to drive him off, he very often goes for the 
man, knocks him down, and tries to kill him by 
digging his great sharp tusks into him. 

So a favourite sport with the Army officers 
in India is to go out and help the natives by 
hunting the boar. They call it " pig-sticking.' ' 

They ride out on horseback, armed with spears, 
and when they find a boar they chase him and try 
to kill him. 

But a boar is tremendously fast and active ; he 
can go as quickly as a horse, and he can jump 
almost any kind of fence. So he is not at all easy 



20 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

to catch, and he leads his hunters a fine dance 
over the country and through the jungle. 

Then, if he finds the horseman overtaking him, 
he will often turn and charge him, throw him 




AN OVERTHROW. 



down and try to rip him open. I have more than 
once been thrown down that way. 

Sometimes the old boar will get into a ravine 
or a difficult bit of the bush, where you cannot 
follow him on horseback. 



WILD BOAR TRAINING 21 

FOLLOWS HIM ON FOOT 

Then the hunter has to get off and follow him 
on foot — and a nice job that is ! — scrambling about 
with a long spear in your hand, very often in 
thick reeds where you cannot see a yard in front 
of you, and where you know there is a savage 
great pig as big as a donkey waiting to rush at 
you. 

How would you like that ? It is pretty exciting 
fun, I can tell you ! He is so big and heavy that, 
when he does charge you, he often sends you 
flying on your back. A boar once downed me 
like that, but I had my spear well into him anc 
was able to hold him off till other fellows came up 
and killed him. 

My poor little friend Algernon never lived to 
become big and wicked. Some dogs scented him 
out one day in the garden and, after chasing him 
for some distance, they caught him and tore him 
so badly that the poor little chap had to be killed 
to put him out of his pain. 

And that was the end of Algernon. 



br*>* 



CHAPTER III 

MY FRIEND THE PANTHER 

Who do you suppose was Squirks ? 

Well, he was a particular friend of mine. It 

was just as well to have him as a friend and not 

as an enemy, for when he was nasty he could be 

very nasty indeed. 

Everybody knows who Bagheera was. He was 

the Black Panther of the Jungle. Well, Squirks 

was a cousin of his — that 
is, he was a panther, but 
not a black one. He was 
a lovely tawny yellow, 
dark on the back and light 
almost to white under- 

SQUIRKS AND JACK. ,i t 1 1 

neath, and he was covered 
with black spots, which on his back were big, 
black rings close together, getting smaller down 
his sides until they were mere black dots. 

He was a very handsome and graceful animal 
when he had grown up, but was a jolly ugly little 
beggar when I first got him. 

PANTHER OR LEOPARD ? 

A panther is very much the same sort of animal 
as a leopard, and people are apt to confuse the 




MY FRIEND THE PANTHER 23 

two together. They really are the same animal, 
but when they live in the mountains and among 
the rocks they are generally thinner and more 
active than those which live in the jungles on the 
plains. 

The latter, having less exercise, and getting 
their hunting easily, grow fatter and larger than 
the mountain kind. It is these larger ones that 
are called panthers, whilst the smaller ones are 
called leopards. 

The way I remember the difference is this. 
The panther pants because he is fat and heavy, 
while the leopard leaps from rock to rock. 

This is how I met Squirks. I was out shooting 
in the jungle one day, riding on an elephant, and 
was on the look out for a panther which was said 
to be in the neighbourhood. 

As we were going along I caught a glimpse of 
spotted fur hiding in a tuft of jungle grass, and 
it looked to me as though this were the paw of a 
panther who was hiding there. So I fired down 
into the grass behind the paw ; whereupon the 
" paw " sat up and looked at me. 

LIKE A YELLOW KITTEN 

It was a baby panther, so I made the elephant 
kneel down, and I quickly slid to the ground and 
captured the little fellow. He was just like a 
huge yellow kitten, about the size of a full-grown 
cat. 

I said to him, " Who are you ? " and he 



24 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

answered back with a sort of snarl which sounded 
like " Squirks ! " so Squirks became his name. 

I brought Squirks back to my camp and 
showed him to Jack, my puppy. 

Neither of them liked the other at first, but 
after a time they grew to be great friends and 
played together all day long. 

After some months Squirks began to grow big, 
much bigger than Jack. His jaw became strong, 







HE SPRANG THROUGH THE AIR LIKE AN ARROW. 

and his claws became long, and in his play he 
rolled the poor dog over and over, and in his 
mouthing and clutching caused him much more 
pain than pleasure, and so poor Jack began to 
get tired of games where he always got the worst 
of it, and he finally gave up playing with Squirks 
altogether. 

But Squirks was naturally gay and light-hearted, 
so when he found Jack no longer wanted to play 



MY FRIEND THE PANTHER 25 

with him, he took to playing with himself, and 
would chase his own tail round and round the 
lawn, and then dash into the house and rush over 
tables and chairs, upsetting everything. 

He used to go for walks with me just like any 
dog would do. 

Once, when I had been ill, I was lying out on a 
stretcher in the garden. Squirks was then getting 
nearly full-grown, and I used to love to watch 
him playing about, he was so active and graceful, 
and his glossy yellow and black hide made him 
very handsome. 

One day as I lay there, I saw Mr. Squirks 
quietly creeping towards me. Nearer and nearer 
he came, crawling more and more slowly all the 
time, with his green eyes watching me, and his 
tail nervously twitching from side to side. It was 
different from his usual way, and I hardly knew 
whether he was coming at me in fun or in earnest. 

A YELL FOR HELP 

I was not able to move, so I let out a yell for 
help. He had now crouched down to the ground 
a few yards away from me, and then suddenly, 
like an arrow from a bow, he sprang through the 
air with a mighty bound and landed plump on 
top of me, half squashing me with his weight. 
There he crouched on my chest, grinning down 
into my face at very close quarters. Luckily, at 
that moment my big Afghan servant ran up and, 
seizing the brute, dragged him off. 



26 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

He soon showed me that Squirks* roughness 
was all well meant, and that he merely wanted me 
to play with him. 

But after this adventure I kept Squirks tied up 
by a long chain to his collar, the other end being 
attached to a tree. 




MY AFGHAN SERVANT CARRIED SQUIRKS AWAY. 

He used to love to climb up in the tree and lie 
flat along a big branch. 

One day, when I was away, fre attempted to 
jump out of the tree, but unfortunately his chain 
caught up over a branch and hanged him, and 
that was the end of jolly old Squirks. 



CHAPTER IV 

MY PET ELEPHANTS 

You will think Fve had some funny pets in my 
time, since I have already told you about my 
tame panther, and my little wild boar, Algernon, 
but a pet elephant is a size larger than these, and 
is not a thing that you can carry about with you 
like a pet rat or a guinea-pig. 

But, all the same, he is a very nice beast, and 
has the sense of all the other animals rolled into 
one. 

An elephant is very like the little girl we read 
in of poetry : 

When she was nice, she was very, very nice ; 
But when she was bad — she was horrid ! 

So there are elephants and elephants. Some 
are rippers and others are regular — Germans ! 

But Dandelion was of the ripping kind. Her 
name wasn't really Dandelion, but a native name, 
something like Psichkalamara, so I called her 
Dandelion. I don't quite know why, but I did. 
Well, Dandelion carried on her back a couple of 
pads or mattresses, and on top of these the 
howdah. This was a kind of box in which one 

27 



28 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

could sit, only its sides, instead of being made of 
wood, were made of plaited cane, like the seat of 
a chair, so that the air could blow through. India 
is a hot country, you know. 

KNEW EACH OTHER WELL 

Then she also carried on her back — well, on the 
back of her neck — the mahout, that is, her driver. 
He was a native who had had charge of Dandelion 
for years, so they knew each other well. 

The mahout sits astride of the elephant's neck, 
with a foot hanging down behind each of her 
ears. With his feet he guides her, urges her on, 
or stops her. If she doesn't obey the hint given 
by the feet, she gets a much stronger one on the 
top of her head from the driver's ankus, or hook. 
This is a nasty iron instrument — a short iron 
stick with a hook on the side of it. If the elephant 
gets very rampageous, as some of them do at 
times, and runs away, the driver can get a hold of 
her forehead with this hook, and, by pulling on it, 
can generally stop her. But it is a cruel kind of 
instrument, and my mahout never used his on 
Dandelion. 

THROUGH THE JUNGLE 

You use an elephant for riding on in India, 
because he can take you over ground where it 
would be impossible to go riding or even walking 
— through the endless jungles, where the grass is 
high above your head if you are walking on foot, 



MY PET ELEPHANTS 29 

and so thick that you cannot push your way 
through it. You are like a mouse in a hayfield. 
But an elephant runs you gaily through it, and, 
sitting in your howdah, you are just above the 
top of the grass. As you go swishing along, look- 
ing round over the wide expanse of it, with your 
elephant heaving and swaying along under you, 
you feel just as if you were in a boat at sea. 




WHEN YOU SEE A TIGER. 



" How do you get up there ? " you ask. Well, 
you can either make the elephant kneel down, so 
that you can clamber into the howdah, or — and 
this is what Dandelion used to do — she puts out 
her trunk with a slight curl upwards on it, so that 
you can step on to it and stand there. She then 
raises you up till you can step off on to the top of 
her head, and from there on to her back. 

Nice and simple, isn't it ? What a pity that 



3 o AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

motor-buses haven't trunks that could lift you on 
to the top like that ! 

Well, when you are sitting up aloft, you have 
your rifle with you, and then, if you see a tiger or 
a deer as you go along, you can get a shot at him. 

QUICK AT SEEING GAME 

Dandelion was awfully good as a shooting 
elephant. She was wonderfully quick at seeing, 
smelling, or hearing any kind of game, and the 
moment she did so she would stop and stand like 
a rock till you fired your shot or told her to go 
on. Very often she saw the game before I did. 

I have a lovely great black bear-skin hanging 
in my room which she got for me. 

We were climbing up out of a deep ravine, or 
little valley, among a few trees and bushes, when 
Dandelion suddenly stopped and clutched hold 
of a tree with her trunk in order to support herself, 
and there she hung on motionless. 

I knew there must be game about. I looked 
everywhere, but could see nothing. Then sud- 
denly I saw a big tuft of shaggy black hair moving 
among the bushes above me. I upped with my 
rifle and fired quickly at it, and out from the 
bushes tumbled a great black ball of fur — a fine 
bear, and he rolled close past us down the hill, 
and lay in a huddled heap below us, dead. 

But it was all thanks to Dandelion that I got 
him. 



MY PET ELEPHANTS 31 

IN THE RAVINES 

I told you how clever my elephant Dandelion 
was at steadying herself in an awkward place 
when she wanted to stand still and give me 
the chance of a good shot at a bear. She hung 
on to a tree with her trunk in order to prevent 
herself slipping on the steep hill-side. She 
was equally clever whenever we had to go in 




A FINE BEAR ROLLED DOWN CLOSE TO US. 

and out of the many ravines and dry water- 
courses. 

To go down into one she would put her fore- 
feet carefully over the edge and let them slide 
down while she knelt with her hind legs and so 
gradually reached the bottom. 

Coming up again out of the bed of the stream 
she would clamber up the far bank and kneel with 



32 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

her front legs on the top until she got her hind 
legs up to their level. 

TESTING BRIDGES 

If she had to go over a small bridge she would 
stop and try it with her trunk and her fore-feet 




DOWN THE BANK— 



first to see if it was strong enough to bear her 
weight. 

When wading about in marshy ground she 
would be always very careful lest she should get 
bogged, and was continually testing the ground 
in front of her before she put her foot on it, for 
fear it should be too soft and let her down. 

She was wonderfully clever, too, at picking up 



MY PET ELEPHANTS 



33 



things if you dropped them off her back. I re- 
member her once picking up with her trunk a 
cigarette which her rider had dropped, and 
quietly handing it back to him. 

Another time when we were out pig-sticking, 
that is, hunting wild boar on horse-back, one of 




— AND DP AGAIN. 



the riders had had a bad fall in the middle of 
high grass jungle. He had lost his spear in 
the fall and we rode in on Dandelion to try and 
find it. Among the thick reeds and long grass 
it was very difficult to recognise the spear, but 
Dandelion found it at last and handed it up to 
the owner. 



34 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

THE LOST SPEAR-HEAD 

He then found it was broken, the spear-head 
had come off, just a small bit of steel about the 
size of a pocket-knife. Again Dandelion was told 
to look about in the tall grass for this, and after 
long searching she actually found it. It seemed 
to me that she had almost the sense of a human 
being rather than of an animal. 

On more than one occasion when out tiger 
shooting she had been charged by a wounded 
tiger. The animal sprang at her head and clung 
there with tooth and nail until the hunters on her 
back managed to put more bullets into him and 
dropped him dead. 

But Dandelion stood like a rock and never 
flinched or funked. 

The funny thing was that although she was so 
brave with the tiger nothing would induce her to 
face a wild boar. He was a much smaller animal 
and could not jump up on to her, and yet if she 
smelt one or heard him rustling about in the 
jungle she was quite inclined to turn tail and bolt. 

All elephants are that way. Brave at times and 
timid at others. 

FRIGHTENED BY A TERRIER 

I one day met a native prince riding along on 
his elephant in very grand style. I was walking 
on foot with my little dog. When the terrier saw 
the elephant he rushed out and barked at it. The 



MY PET ELEPHANTS 35 

elephant did not think twice about it, but swung 
round and dashed off down the road as hard as 
he could go, running away from the little terrier 
whom he could have squashed to a pancake had 
he put his foot on him. It quite upset all the 
dignity and swank of his owner. 

I made the sketch on page 37 of a small boy 
(no bigger than a Wolf Cub) lambasting his 
father's elephant, and the elephant taking it as 
you might say " lying down," when with one 




THE LITTLE DOG PUTS A STOP TO THE ELEPHANT'S SWANK. 

swish of its trunk it could have knocked the 
urchin to smithereens. 

And, mind you, a beating can hurt an elephant. 
In spite of its size and the thickness of his hide he 
can feel the slightest touch, and he gets driven 
nearly mad when flies or mosquitoes are about. 
He sucks up dust off the ground, for his trunk is, 
as you know, his nose, and he can sniff it up as 
a man sniffs snuff, and then he blows it out over 
himself and thus drives the flies away. 



36 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

FOND OF HIS BATH 

Or again with his trunk, which he uses as a 
hand, he tears down a branch off a tree and 
brushes the flies off with this. And how an 
elephant loves bathing ! No boy cou/d enjoy it 
more. He goes solemnly into the water and 
draws up any amount of it in his trunk and gives 
himself a real good shower-bath. Then he quietly 
lies down and sloshes over on his side and lets 
his mahout come and scrub him all over with a 
good rough stone. 

The difficulty is to get him to come out of his 
bath again, he loves it so much. 

But although he is such a nice beast and so 
clever, he can at times be very wicked indeed. 
Very often, for no reason whatever, he will sud- 
denly take it into his head to run away, and 
nothing can stop him, and he will go for miles 
and miles before he gets tired, and has a nasty 
habit of running under trees so that the branches 
will sweep off the passengers on his back. 

LIVES OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS 

One elephant I knew wore a great heavy chain 
bracelet round each of his four ankles. This was 
a punishment to which he had been condemned 
because he had killed two or three men one day 

He was wading across a river carrying a lot of 
Army tents on his back, and he suddenly found his 
feet sinking in a quicksand. 



MY PET ELEPHANTS 37 

Close alongside him were a number of natives 
walking through the river, and he reached out 
with his trunk, and seizing one of them, shoved 
him down under his feet ; and then he snatched 
up another and yet another and did the same with 
them, in order to get a better foothold. 

The poor natives were, of course, killed, and 
the elephant was condemned to wear chains for 
the rest of his life. That was some punishment, 




AN ELEPHANT RECEIVING A SMACKING. 

because an elephant lives over a hundred and 
fifty years ! 

Once when I was in camp and we were all 
taking a midday rest there was a sudden shouting 
and excitement because one of our elephants, 
seeing his mahout lying asleep not far off, walked 
up to him and stamped on him with his great big 
foot. Fortunately he made a bad shot and missed 
the man's body, but just caught the side of his 
leg and tore all the flesh off his thigh. 



38 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

A NOVEL PUNISHMENT 

The other mahouts at once assembled and tied 
up the elephant as a prisoner and condemned him 
to be flogged. The remaining nineteen elephants 
in the camp were then paraded, each with his 
mahout on his neck and a piece of heavy chain 
held in his trunk. They filed along, one behind 
the other, past the criminal, and each as he went 
by gave him a tremendous slam with his bit of 
chain. 

The mahouts said that each one of the elephants 
understood the whole of what was going on, and 
it was a lesson to them as well as to the culprit. 

I don't know that the elephants are quite so 
clever as all that, but they are certainly very 
different from other animals and are very wise. 
The only bad point about them is that they are 
so big, and therefore you cannot keep them as 
pets in your room. Otherwise an elephant would 
be an awfully nice companion or a good mascot 
for a pack of Cubs. 



CHAPTER V 

CATCHING A JACKAL 

When a man wants to pull the leg of a small boy 
he thinks it funny to tell him that if he wants to 
catch a bird he should go and put salt on its tail. 

So, too, he will often ask whether you have 
ever caught a weasel asleep, because it is known 
that a weasel is a most wide-awake animal and 
very difficult to catch by any means. 

In the same way a jackal is one of the animals 
which you can never catch in a trap, no matter 
how cunningly your trap may be made and laid. 

When I was in India I had as a friend a police 
officer who had lived a great deal among the native 
people, and who got to know much of their ways, 
and by being their friend and talking their lingo 
he was able to find out many things about them 
which very few other white men knew. 

THE JACKAL IS SHY 

I was talking to him once about this shyness 
of the jackal when he told me that a certain tribe 
among the Indians managed to get round the wily 
animals and to kill them for food. 

You know from the jungle story in the Wolf 

39 



4 o AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

Cub book how Mr. Jackal (Tabaqui) is a sneaking 
sort of lick-your-boots gentleman. He is afraid 
to go about alone, and though he looks like a fox 
or a wolf, he never hunts or earns his own food 
like one, but slinks about trying to steal or beg it 
from others. 

Then when he has got it he is not a bit grateful. 
He quarrels and snarls over every mouthful, com- 
plaining that it is tough or not to his taste, and 
when he is not eating he runs about yapping and 
yelling, disturbing the game that other people 
are hunting and making a regular nuisance of 
himself. 

He is clever in one thing alone, and that is that 
he will not walk into a trap that has been set to 
catch him. 

So I wondered very much how these Indians 
managed to get their jackals, since they did not 
carry guns with which to shoot them. I was 
awfully pleased, therefore, when my friend the 
police officer offered to take me to see them do it. 

The particular tribe which fed on jackals were 
called Jogis, a gipsy people, who wandered about 
the country without any regular fixed home of 
their own. 

We went off into the jungle one day, and there 
we found a camp of these people, and a curious 
lot they were — very wild, very dirty, with only a 
few rags of clothing on them, but very cheery 
and friendly. 

About half a dozen of them came out, delighted 



CATCHING A JACKAL 



4i 



to show us how they caught jackals . They brought 
with them their dogs and big sticks like Scout's 
staves, which are called lathis. 

The jungle here was mainly patches of bushes 
and long grass, dotted about in a sandy country. 
After we had been walking 
along for some time, one or 
two of the men suddenly 
pointed to foot tracks on the 
ground. 

TELL-TALE FOOTPRINTS 

They said these were the 
fresh tracks of jackals, but to 
me they looked like those of -^ «y 
the many dogs that we had 
with us. 

The trackers, however, 
showed to me how these footmarks were longer 
and narrower than those of dogs. Also that the 
jackal trod more carefully than the dog, his hind 
feet stepping exactly where his fore feet had 
been, because as a wild animal he looked where 
he was putting his fore feet to see that they did 
not step on a twig and make a noise. 

He knew, then, too, that if he put his hind feet 
in the same place it would be all right ; but a dog 
trots along without fearing whether he makes a 
noise or not. 

Also at the toe of the dog's footmark a little 
dust was often dragged up as he drew his foot 




WILD, DIRTY, AND 
CHEERY. 



42 AN OLD WOLFS FAVOURITES 

along near the ground, while a jackal always lifted 
his feet carefully straight up and down without 
toeing the soil. 

Presently we came to an open patch of sand 
surrounded by a lot of tall grass. As there were 
plenty of fresh jackal tracks about, we now hid 
ourselves in the grass all round this open space. 
Then a young man went out into the middle, 
taking with him a small branch covered with 
leaves, which he plucked from a tree, and as he 
stood alone out in the open he began calling softly 
and whining almost like a dog. 

AN AWFUL DIN 

After some minutes of this he changed his call 
to a restless kind of yapping, and then he mixed 
up with it a good deal of growling and angry 
barking and snarling. 

He worked this up till you could (if you shut 
your eyes) quite believe that two jackals were 
quarrelling with each other. 

Then he changed the note again and made an 
awful din as if there were a raging dog fight. He 
was screaming and snarling, whining and yelping. 
You never heard such a row. 

All the time he was doing it he kept shaking 
the branch so that the leaves on it rustled and made 
a sound as if the imaginary jackals were rolling 
over each other in the reeds and dry grass. 

Suddenly the lad flung himself down on the 
ground, and making a worse hullabaloo than ever 



CATCHING A JACKAL 43 

he threw up the sand all round him so that he 
was completely hidden in a cloud of dust. 

His quick eye had seen what we only saw a few 
seconds later, and that was that a jackal was coming 
along close by. In another moment the beast was 
there out in the open dashing into the cloud of 
dust, evidently thinking that he was going to join 
in a fight for some good food. 

But in another second he was flying out of the 




SNARLING AND GROWLING LIKE A DOG FIGHT. 

dust again, howling with fright, with his tail 
between his legs. 

But too late ! From every side the dogs were 
loosed, and they were on to him before he could 
escape. 

In a few seconds he had been pulled down, and 
killed with lathis. But it was all done quite silently, 
and within a minute all trace of the struggle was 
removed, and the men and dogs were back in 
their hiding-places, while the young man in the 
middle still went on with his yelling performance. 



44 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

ANOTHER JACKAL APPEARS 

One soon saw the reason for this quick and 
silent way of doing the trick, for within two 
minutes another jackal dashed into the arena just 
as the first one had done, and was caught in just 
the same way and made into meat. 

Of course it sounds very wonderful to be able 
to imitate the voice of an animal so cleverly as to 
draw on so shy a beast as a jackal, but if you 
carefully listen to the calls of animals and then 






THE JACKAL RUSHED INTO A WHIRL OF DUST. 

learn to imitate them, you will soon find yourself 
in the wonderful position of being able to get them 
to answer or fo come to you. 

The easiest of all is perhaps the owl, and if you 
are out in the woods late and can imitate the owl's 
call, you will very soon get an answer, and will 
probably be able to bring the bird close to you. 

DRAWING A WEASEL 

Even that very shy animal of which I spoke 
just now — namely, the weasel — can be got to 




CATCHING A JACKAL 45 

come close to you if you stand stock still like the 
stub of a tree and imitate the cry of a rabbit in 
distress. He is a bloodthirsty little beast, and 
this cry of a rabbit, which you do by sucking in 
breath between your lips with a sort of squeak, 
is sure to draw him. 

I had great fun the last time I was at the Zoo 
by imitating a wolf's howl, which set all the wolves 
howling, and this brought out the wild dogs and 
then the jackals and the hyaenas. You never 
heard such a row in your life, until it even had the 
effect of waking up the vultures, who started sing- 
ing their raucous chorus. You might go and try 
it one of these days yourself. 

I expect you have heard of the man who went 
out to catch rabbits by making a noise like a 
turnip I But he lived in a lunatic asylum. 



CHAPTER VI 

HOW TO HIDE 

One great thing to remember is not to hide in a 
place which looks particularly good, because that 
is just the place where searchers would naturally 
look for you. I remember the case of one of our 
Scouts who, when in the Royal Flying Corps, had 
the misfortune to come down, owing to engine 
trouble, in the enemy's country. 

He managed to land all right in a field close 
alongside a long, narrow wood. So he set fire 
to his machine and then ran into the wood, as he 
knew the enemy must have seen him come down 
and would soon be there looking for him. So he 
hid himself. In the wood ? No, not he. He 
was a Scout, I tell you — not a fool. The wood 
was the likely sort of spot to hide in, so he didn't 
stop there, but ran through it. On the other side 
he found some cottages and gardens, with a stream 
flowing along the bottom of the gardens. 

TRICKED HIS PURSUERS 

These were vegetable gardens, and full of rows 
and rows of beans. So he ran along in the stream, 
where he was able to keep hidden from the 

4 6 



HOW TO HIDE 47 

windows of the houses and at the same time left no 
footprints for his pursuers to find. Then he got 
into the gardens and crawled up out of the stream 
and laid himself flat in the middle of a row of 
beans. And though his pursuers searched every- 
where around they never found him, because he 
was not in the likely spot. 

Well, I see that one of our submarines carried 
out the same idea once when being hunted by 
German destroyers. 

You know, our submarines used to go regularly 
into the Heligoland Bight, in the hope of catching 
a German man-o'-war. They used to watch their 
minesweepers and just keep out of their way ; 
they did not waste torpedoes on them nor create 
alarm. As an officer wrote in Blackwood's Maga- 
zine when describing this' work, " These small 
craft don't see you unless you worry about them. 
If we once started strafing them they'd keep a 
better look out ; but nobody keeps a good look out 
unless he's scared — so we don't scare them. . . . 
We had some trouble on the fourth day. No, 
not dangerous ; just aggravating. You see we 
got seen by some idiot, and they soon sent out 
the usual four torpedo-boats to look for us. 

" They came fussing along and saw my peri- 
scope at fairly long range, as it was a flat calm. 
They loosed off at me, and I at once went down, and 
instead of running away from them went full speed 
towards them and so passed under them. We re- 
mained down until dark, and when we came up I 



48 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

knew I was going to have trouble and worry in get- 
ting my batteries charged, as they'd have all sorts 
of packets barging around at night looking for me. 

" So we thought it over and decided that the 
best place to sit and charge would be close to their 
boom defences, because they would never think 
of looking for us there. 

11 We saw lots of craft go by, all heading out to 
sea to put in a hate against us. I heard afterwards 
that some of their destroyers in looking for us 
that night had a scrap with each other in the dark, 
and one got pretty badly damaged ! " 

But our submarine came off all right because 
he knew how to hide — where he was least expected. 

PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK 

" Hide-and-seek ! " I should think I Aflrf played 
it. I used to be jolly good at it when I was a Wolf 
Cub's age. I just loved to play it when I was at 
school, and I think it is a ripping game, and like 
most others, if you take a little trouble about it 
you can become better than other fellows at it, 
and you can always get great fun out of it. Be- 
sides, 9ome day it may be very useful to you. 

Of course a Fool- Cub when he is sent out to 
hide sees a good place to hide in, and goes there 
and stows himself away. The pack then come out, 
and they look around and see the most likely 
hiding-place, go there, and catch Mr. Fool-Cub in it. 

But then he is a Fool-Cub. If he were a Wise- 
Cub he would not choose the most likely looking 



HOW TO HIDE 



49 



place to go and hide in. He would think a bit 
first, he would use his wits, and cunningly get 
into some very unlikely looking spot. 

When hiding, it is a useful thing to remember 
that fellows generally do not look up when they 
are searching for you, but keep their eyes open 
mainly for tracks on the ground, or for your hiding 
under furniture, bushes, etc. 




FIND THE MAN HIDDEN IN THE OPEN. 



SHELTER IN A TREE 

I was once in a tight place among a lot of boys, 
who were hunting for me in a garden through 
which ran an ivy-covered wall. I lay flat along 
the top of the wall, looking down between the 
ivy leaves on my pursuers on both sides of me, 
but not one of them looked upwards. If he had 
done so he couldn't have missed seeing me. I 
was once nearly killed for my foolishness when I 
was the pursuer and the other chap was hiding. 
He was an enemy in Matabeleland ; I was looking 
for him in some long grass, and he was hiding 



50 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

from me in the top of a tree. I did not think to 
look up, until a shot from overhead plunged into 
the ground at my feet, and I saw my friend right 
above me preparing to have another go at me. 

Fortunately his first shot had missed, and 
attracted the attention of some of our marksmen 
close by, and they killed him before he could do 
any more harm. 

After that I always took good care to look up, 
as well as down and around when searching for 
enemy. 

TO HIDE IN THE OPEN 

It is quite possible for a hider, if he is clever 
and properly dressed, to hide himself out in the 
open. When I say properly dressed, I mean that 
if he has clothes that are the colour of the ground 
about him, he can by sitting perfectly still escape 
notice of his pursuers. Even a soldier in red, if 
he stands against a red wall, is not noticeable at 
a short distance, provided that he keeps still. 

But if he goes and walks about in a green field, 
of course you would spot him at once a mile 
away. 

I have myself sat on a hill-side among a lot of 
stones and rocks dressed in khaki, which was of 
the same colour, and so long as I did not move I 
was in full sight of the enemy and yet unseen by 
them. It was only because I wore a red sash 
round my waist one day that they spotted me, and 
I was very nearly caught through my own care- 
lessness. 



HOW TO HIDE 



5i 







A SHOT FROM THE MAN IN THE TREE JUST MISSED ME. 



52 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

SPECIAL CLOTHES MADE 

In the war a great many of our scouts and 
snipers had special clothes made for them to 
match the ground exactly in which they were 
working. 

Thus among sandhills a man would be covered 
with a sand-coloured garment with tufts of rough 
grass sticking out of it here and there, so that he 
was perfectly invisible and could not be noticed 
a few yards away. 

But to do this he had to wear a veil of the same 
colour with small eyeholes cut in it and coloured 
gloves on his hands. 

You have to remember when hiding that your 
face and hands are of a different colour from your 
surroundings and will often give you away unless 
you colour them or cover them. 

So when you are hiding in dark corners in the 
house or in the woods if you have nothing with 
which to cover your hands and face it is best to 
hide them by turning your back on your enemy 
and crumpling yourself up into a position that 
makes you unlike yourself. Your enemy will 
then come close without ever seeing you. 

I had great fun in this way once in the back- 
woods of West Africa. With some of my native 
scouts I lay in wait alongside a little track through 
the jungle for any scouts of the enemy who might 
pass during the night. 

I made my party crouch down close to the path, 



HOW TO HIDE S3 

and then I walked down it myself to see that they 
did not show in any way. 

Then I went and hid myself by the path about 
thirty yards from them, where I should be the 
first to see who came along, and squatted. 

As I was on the ground I could look up and see 
any stranger outlined against the stars. 

BOUND AND GAGGED 

We had not been there long before I was 
startled by one of the enemy walking noiselessly 
along and very nearly treading on me ! But he 
never saw me, and no sooner was he well past me 
than I gave a whistle and a second or two later 
he found himself thrown down, gagged and bound 
in absolute silence by my little party. One after 
another, more of the enemy's scouts came along 
the path, some quickly, others cautiously ; but 
all fell into the same trap. Finally came their 
head scout, very crafty and very suspicious. He 
seemed to come only an inch at a time. 

Fortunately something attracted his eye beyond 
me, so that he did not notice me. But just 
when he got abreast of me, not a yard distant 
from where I was, with his back towards me, he 
stood stock still like a statue peering forward, 
evidently suspicious, listening and sniffing the 
breeze. 

I thought he must hear my heart beating, as I 
was so close to him. He still continued to stare 
forward till I thought he must have seen some- 



54 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

thing suspicious, and was going to bolt back with 
the news. 

So I silently stood to my feet, flung my arms 
round his neck, and with my knee in the small 
of his back I brought him to the ground, where I 
held him tight, while my men rushed to my 
assistance. 




FLUNG MY ARMS AROUND HIS NECK. 



Before they could reach us he had turned his 
gun, so that the muzzle was pressing against my 
tummy, but with one hand I grasped the lock. 

It was an old flint-lock gun, and the cock broke 
off in my hand, and I toppled him over and lay 
on him. Of course he wriggled and fought, but 
a moment later my Hausa orderly flung himself 
on to us with a yell, and seized my prisoner's right 



HOW TO HIDE 55 

arm, and I found then that he had drawn a knife, 
and was just about to puncture my back with it. 

But we had him safe and sound ; and it was a 
great score, as he was supposed to be their best 
scout. 

THE WAY OF ESCAPE 

These men had been sent out to find the way 
for their king to escape during the night from our 
troops, but in consequence of their all being 
captured, he did not dare to come along the path. 

He saw that his escape was cut off, and he 
surrendered next day. But our success was due 
to our having learnt properly how to play hide- 
and-seek. 



CHAPTER VII 

A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 

On the Western Coast of Africa lies the mysterious 
country known as the Gold Coast. 

You all know how Africa bulges round to the 
westward and then curves inwards in a big sort 
of bay before it tapers away to South Africa and 
the Cape of Good Hope. It is in this bay that the 
Gold Coast lies. 

I went there with an expedition against the 
Ashantis, a savage tribe of natives who lived away 
up in the Bush of that country. I have been told 
that most Wolf Cubs would like to hear about it, 
as we had some rather jolly adventures. 

To get there by sea, after leaving Southampton, 
we crossed the stormy Bay of Biscay, where the 
waves are not content to splash about like the 
breakers that you see on the shore, but they really 
run up into great hills with valley between, so that 
if another ship is in your neighbourhood she may 
be in full view one minute, but is out of sight, 
except for the tops of her masts, the next. 

Down past the Coast of Spain with its rocky 
headlands and mountains, with little white farms 
dotted on their sides, we steamed to the mouth 

56 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 57 

of the River Tagus, the main river of Portugal, 
on which lies the great city of Lisbon. 

Near the mouth of the Tagus, as we passed we 
saw the monument which was put up to the 
memory of Vasco da Gama. Who was Vasco da 
Gama ? 

ANCIENT SEA SCOUTS 

He was a great Sea Scout who was the first 
explorer to sail round the Cape of Good Hope 
and to make a map of it. 

It was said that a thousand years before his 
time the Phoenicians had also sailed round Africa. 
The Phoenicians were a race of people who came 
from Syria and were bold sailors, who not only 
ventured to every part of the Mediterranean, but 
even crossed the dreaded Bay of Biscay in their 
small vessels and obtained their tin from Cornwall. 

These people, like good Scouts, kept a log of 
their trip, and they recorded in it that they sailed 
for months down the coast of Africa with the sun 
rising every morning on their left hand. They 
took their direction in those days entirely by the 
sun and the stars because they had no compasses 
to guide them. 

After a time they reported that the sun, instead 
of rising on their left, rose on their right hand 
every day, which, you see, means that they had 
changed their direction, and instead of sailing 
south were now going up north, the rising sun 
being in the east on their right hand. It is said 
that the Gold Coast was discovered by these plucky 



58 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

people, and that they dug for gold there. Cer- 
tainly there are any amount of gold diggings 
which were never made by the savages who have 
lived there for the past few hundred years. 

Well, in our ship we followed the track of the 
Phoenicians, and called in at the Island of Madeira 
off the Coast of Portugal. 

TOBOGGANING AT MADEIRA 

This is a great wooded mountain standing up 
out of the sea, covered with delightful houses 
and gardens for a long way up the face of it ; and 
here you can get every kind of fruit and flower 
you may wish to have. 

The paths are all made of small cobble stones, 
and it is hard and slippery work to go up the 
mountain side, but it is worth the trouble, because 
when you get to the top you get into a basket on 
sleigh-runners, and you come whizzing all the 
way down as if you were tobogganing. 

It is a charming, peaceful place, but, neverthe- 
less, it suffered from attack by a German sub- 
marine, because the owners of it, the Portuguese, 
were our Allies in the war. 

THE STARMAN'S CAMP 

From Madeira the ship steamed on to the 
Canary Islands, lying off the West Coast of North 
Africa, passing the peak of Teneriffe on the way. 

This is a great high mountain standing sheer up 
out of the ocean. One man so admired this peak 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 59 

that he built a hut on the top of it, and lived there 
for some time with his wife, where he studied 
astronomy, watching the stars and making maps 
of them. 

That man was my uncle. If he had been a 
Scout he would have won the Starman's Badge 
twenty times over. 

LONELY FISHERMEN 

Leaving the Canary Islands we at last sighted 
the dim low shore of Africa, and by this time the 
sea had changed its character, and instead of 
being bright blue with dancing waves, had a 
sullen grey oily surface, with a sickly haze hanging 
over the land, and a heavy damp heat which made 
you feel disinclined for taking much exercise. 

Before we sighted the land we came across a 
little canoe, a long, narrow, straight boat which 
was nothing more nor less than the stem of a tree 
hollowed out, and in it were three blackies. 

We steamed close to look at them, thinking 
that they might be in distress, and that possibly 
they had drifted or been blown out to sea from 
the land. But not a bit of it. They were quite 
happy, and made signs that they were willing to 
sell us fish if we wanted it. But we did not, and 
went on our way. It has always been a puzzle to 
me how these fellows ever found their way back 
home again, being out of sight of land with no 
charts and no compass to guide them. 



60 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

THE SURF ON THE COAST 

At last one morning we found ourselves lying 
off Cape Coast Castle, one of the chief ports of 
the Gold Coast. There was just an old castle of 
the rocks, a white sandy beach, a lot of palm trees, 
and dark green bush stretching away for miles 
and miles on either hand, and near the castle the 
roofs of a little town, chiefly occupied by natives. 

We were, of course, all eager to get ashore, but 
between us and that peaceful scene lay a difficulty. 

There was a great line of seething water 
between us and the beach — the surf of the coast, 
caused by regular lines of mountainous waves 
rushing forward and bursting on the beach, in 
which no ordinary boat could live. 

But the native boatmen understood how to 
deal with this, and before long we saw the surf 
boats coming out like little beetles crawling over 
the waters. 

Each boat had about twenty men sitting along 
each gunwale, each man wielding a short paddle, 
all working together like clockwork, and singing 
a weird song as they dug their paddles into the 
water and shoved their great boat along. 

AN OAR AS RUDDER 

In the stern stood the steersman, holding a big 
oar with which he directed the boat, so that it 
took on waves at the proper angle, and was not 
thrown over by them. 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 61 

It was real fun, mixed with considerable ex- 
citement, to go ashore in one of these boats, for 
as you got nearer and nearer to the shore the roar 
of the surf got louder and louder, and you began 
to think that you wished you had not come ; and 
when you got among the waves the boat seemed 
fairly to rush with you, and the boatmen yelled 
their song and plied their paddles with double 
fury, so that one felt excited, too, and it became 
just like a rush of a switchback coupled with the 
plunge of a water-chute. One wanted to yell 
with the fun of it, and felt quite sorry as the boat 
grated up the beach, and was rushed on by a 
hundred willing fellows pulling her high and dry 
out of harm's way. 

CHEERFUL-LOOKING BLACKIES 

After we had landed in the surf boats we found 
a large straggling town of small huts stretching 
over sandy hot roads, with a population of cheer- 
ful-looking blackies, with great grinning mouths, 
showing their white, even teeth. They manage to 
keep their teeth cleaner than most English boys, 
but I hope that Wolf Cubs, at any rate, will not 
be beaten by a blackie at this, and that you will 
clean your teeth, as they do, every morning and 
every evening. 

They have not got any ordinary tooth-brushes 
made of ivory and bristles like we have, nor have 
they chemist shops where they could buy them ; 
so they do what a good resourceful Wolf Cub 



62 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

does — when they haven't got a thing they want, 
they make it. 

They take a bit of stick about the size of a thick 
pencil and hammer the end of it flat between two 
stones until it frays out into a lot of fibres like a 
paint brush. Using this end on, they scrub their 
teeth up and down, and so keep them white and 
clean, and do not get toothache. 

Although this country is inhabited by natives, 
it is part of the British Empire, and ruled over by 
a British Governor and a few commissioners and 
police officers. The people are nice, well-con- 
ducted folk, who have schools much like our 
schools at home, and now among the boys they 
have their Troops of Scouts and their Packs of 
Wolf Cubs, so you may be sure they will be 
particularly good subjects of the King. 

But only a few miles inland the natives were 
very different. There, although they were under 
British protection, they were ruled over by their 
own king, and they would not allow anybody to 
pass through their country for trading or other 
purposes, and they used to catch any stranger 
they could and make a slave of him so long 
as they wanted him, and then they chopped off 
his head. 

CUTTING OFF HEADS 

They just loved cutting off people's heads. 
When the inhabitants wanted any excitement or 
amusement, instead of going to the pictures or a 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 63 

football match they had an execution and cut off 
a number of people's heads. 

So much did they enjoy seeing other people 
have their heads off, that the king found it an easy 
way to make himself popular to have frequent 
executions for the public to look at. 

So, if any man was late in paying his taxes, the 
king ordered him to come and be executed, and 
he was only let off on condition that he sent three 
or four slaves or more to take his place. 

And so these poor fellows were killed simply 
for the amusement of the others, and not because 
they had done any wrong. 

BELIEVE IN GHOSTS 

These people, having no proper religion of 
their own, knew nothing about God, and therefore 
believed in ghosts and bogies, and were afraid to 
go out in the forest, especially by night, without 
something to protect them against attacks by 
different kinds of devils. 

So they worshipped idols, which they call 
" Fetish/' and paid the priests in the temples to 
give them charms that would protect them. 
These charms were made out of human blood, 
and the priests made a great deal of money by 
selling them to the people. But this, of course, 
caused a number of other people to be killed by 
the priests. 

When the British Government heard of all this 
brutality, they sent to the king and warned him 



64 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

that he must stop it at once. This he promised 
to do, but he never carried out his promise. 

He was not a man of honour, and he could not 
be trusted ; so, in the end, the British Govern- 
ment sent an expedition against him in order to 
put a stop to his inhuman practices. 

A NATIVE LEVY 

The duty that I had to do was to raise a regi- 
ment among the friendly natives in our own 
district, who were to act as scouts, and prepare 
the way for the British force that was going to 
advance into the country. 

Notice was therefore sent to the chiefs of the 
different tribes close by, telling each to send a 
company of his best men to join me at Cape 
Coast Castle at one o'clock on a certain day. 

The day came, and one o'clock came, but not 
one of my gallant army appeared on the scene. 

They were not like Wolf Cubs ; they had never 
been taught what it was to be punctual for school 
or for parade. They had never learnt the Cub 
Law that they should give in to the Old Wolf and 
should not give in to themselves. They did just 
the opposite. 

It was a hot, muggy day — they were lying asleep 
in the shade. Why should they disturb them- 
selves ? 

So they gave in to themselves, and continued 
to lie about instead of coming to parade. 

Very soon they learnt, however, that it was best 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 65 

to give in to the Old Wolf, because he came along 
with a big stick and routed them out ! 



RIDICULOUS COSTUMES 

Having got my companies together, the next 
thing was to put them into uniform, and this was 
easily done. They came in all sorts of dresses, 
some with very little on, others 
with most ridiculous costumes. 

It was a hot country, and 
they were accustomed to wear- 
ing no clothes, so I made 
them take off the odds and 
ends they were wearing, and 
they were soon in uniform — 
that is, they were all dressed 
alike — in their own brown 
skins. 

I gave each man a red fez 
to wear, a flint-lock gun, a belt, and a bag to 
carry his food in, and a blanket to sleep in at 
night, and in a very short time my army was 
ready and equipped for taking the field. 

A few of them owned drums, and one or two 
had horns on which they could blow weird sounds. 
These horns were made out of elephants ' tusks, 
and the drums were hollowed out of the trunks 
of the trees, and, with these drummers and 
trumpeters at the head of the force, we started off 
gaily on our first day's march into the " bush " 
towards the enemy's country. 




OUR DRUMMER. 



66 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 



IN THE FOREST JUNGLE 

And so we moved steadily up country against 
the enemy. There were no roads, no fields, no 
hedges, but everywhere thick forest and jungle. 
Underfoot the ground was generally damp and 
sloshy ; all round was thick bush, out of which 
grew trees so thick that very 
little sunlight came through, 
and the wood was half dark. 

High above the ordinary 
trees the giant " cotton trees " 
stood up against the sky. 
These great trees are as tall as 
the highest church steeple, 
with just a cluster of branches 
at the top, and immense roots, 
partly above the ground, be- 
hind which men could hide 
themselves. 

Through this half-dark jun- 
gle we had to cut a path as 
we went along, using the com- 
pass as our guide, because we 
never could see far ahead. 
For the first day we enjoyed this novel scenery, 
but when it went on day after day, and week after 
week exactly the same, without coming to any 
open country or change of view, you may guess 
we got pretty tired of it. 

But we had lots of work to do. We were the 




THE GIANT COTTON 
TREES. 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 67 

Scouts of the Army. We had to keep a look-out, 
and try to find the enemy in case he should be 
hiding in the woods, ready to open fire on the main 
body of our force when they came along. 



BLAZING A TRAIL 



Then, also, we were the pioneers of the Army, 
which means that we had to cut the path, and 
where the ground was very boggy to build a road 
of logs across the bad places ; where one of the 




THE BLACKIES HAD TO BUILD A BRIDGE. 

giant trees had fallen and lay across our road we 
had to make an inclined path up one side and 
down the other, so that it did not check the ad- 
vance of the soldiers. 

Here and there the path had to be doubly wide, 
so that the troops going up and others going down 
the road could pass one another. 

Whenever we came to a stream we had to make 
a bridge across it, and in the course of our journey 
we built no less than two hundred of these ; and 
do you know that none of these silly blackies 



68 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

knew how to tie a knot ? So that, very often, 
when they had built the bridge of poles and had 
tied it all together, the whole thing fell to pieces 
again because the lashings had not been properly 
tied. Wolf Cubs could do better than that ! 



BUILT REST-HOUSES 

Every few miles we cleared a space of ground, 
chopped down trees, and built large sheds in 
which the troops could rest for the night when 
they came to the end of their day's march, and 
under these sheds we made long tables upon which 
the men could lie and sleep, well off the damp 
ground. 

The country is a most unhealthy one, and if 
you sleep on the ground or let your clothes get 
damp upon you without changing into dry things, 
you are pretty sure to get fever ; and nearly every- 
body in the Expedition got ill at one time or 
another, and many of them died. I took very 
good care of myself, and carried out the orders 
that were given us for keeping healthy, and the 
consequence was that I never had a day's sick- 
ness. 

HOW WE SAW THE KAA 

The forest was so dark and unhealthy that very 
few animals lived in it. We never saw more than 
a few monkeys or opossums away up in the trees, 
nor did we see many tracks on the ground. The 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 69 

opossums used to give us a weird cry at night — it 
was just the sort of noise that a Wolf Cub would 
make if a wild chimpanzee caught him and started 
to eat him alive, beginning with his feet — a 
horrible scream it was. 

There were glorious butterflies in the jungle 
and vast armies of ants — and didn't they smell, 




THE BLACKIES DIDN T KNOW HOW TO TIE KNOTS AND 
THE BRIDGE BROKE. 



too ! They were just like a gasworks ! They came 
along in a vast body, a yard or two wide, and 
perhaps four or five hundred yards long. Nothing 
would turn them aside. If they crossed your path, 
the best thing you could do was to jump over them 
or they would be all over you. 

If they marched into your tent, the only thing 
to do was to get out of it as quickly a9 you could, 



70 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

until they chose to go away again. They were a 
nasty, stinking, nipping lot. 

One day my men called me out from my tent, 
telling me they had brought a pet for me, and I 
found they were carrying among them a huge 
fat snake, a boa constrictor, like old Kaa of the 
Jungle Book. He was coiled up as you see them 
in the Zoo, so that you couldn't make out where 
was his head or his tail. 

When they put him on the ground he remained 
quite still, though you could see by his breathing 
that he was alive. 

Then we all kept quiet, and he cautiously 
brought his head out from within the folds* of his 
body, and, thinking that we had gone away, he 
quietly began to slide along and quickly dis- 
appeared among the long grass of the forest. 

SURPRISED THE ENEMY 

At last one day we got to the enemy's main town, 
Kumassi. He had had parties of men on the watch 
for us miles out in the forest, but our Scouts had 
discovered these, and all night long in pitch dark- 
ness we cut a path for ourselves in such a way as 
to get past these outposts without their knowing 
of it ; by daylight we were well behind them, and 
from three sides at once we suddenly appeared 
before their town. 

There was a tremendous hullabaloo among the 
natives when they found us there, and we could 
hear their drums booming away at a tremendous 



A YARN ABOUT WEST AFRICA 71 

pace. These people play their drums so that they 
signal to each other messages, very much in the 
same way that Scouts and Wolf Cubs can tap off 
messages in the Morse code. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HORSES I HAVE OWNED 

Any Wolf Cub who has visited my home will 
have seen, in the little hut where I sleep in the 
garden, a Roll of Honour painted on the wall. It 
is a list of all the horses that I have owned during 
my life in the Army. I love to look over their 
names from time to time and to think of the happy 
days I have had with them. 

Horses have been good friends and companions 
to me, and I have a very great love for them. 
They are awfully nice beasts when you get to 
know them. First on the list stands Hercules. 
He was the first pony I ever owned, so I ought to 
have been proud of him. 

So I was in a way, but he was ugly ! My word, 
he was ugly ! A little, thin, red chestnut pony, 
with a head like a fiddle and hip bones sticking up 
like hat-pegs — a miserable-looking rat of a thing. 

I really bought him out of pity. It was in India. 
He belonged to a man who made his living by 
cutting grass and selling it to horse-owners for 
feeding their horses. Hercules had to carry the 
load of grass every day to the market, and the load 
was as big as himself. That was how he got the 

72 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 



73 



name of Hercules, for Hercules was the name of 
the strong man in ancient history. 

When I had bought him I tried to fatten him 
up with good food and plenty of it. But it never 
made the slightest difference in his appearance ; 
he remained as thin and as ugly as ever. 




HERCULES WAS NO BEAUTY. 



But having got rid of his load of grass, he became 
quite gay and lively. 

I was then learning to play polo, and we learnt 
the game together, Hercules and I. 



LEARNING TO PLAY POLO 



Polo, you know, is a game, like football or 
hockey, where two teams play against each other 
on a big field with a goal at each end. Instead of 



74 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

a leather ball, they play with a little hard wooden 
one, and, instead of running, the players ride 
ponies, and they hit the ball with a small mallet 
on a long cane handle. 

Polo is hockey on horseback. I have played 
most games that boys play, but there is not one 
that comes near polo for excitement and enjoy- 
ment. 

You have to be as sure of hitting the ball at 

polo as you have at cricket ; you have to be as 

quick to think and act as you 

have at football ; you have to 

stand hard knocks with as big a 

smile as you do at hockey ; but 

beyond this you have also to 

manage and guide your pony 

without falling off ; you have to 

take risks of being rolled over, 

pony and all, in a charge, and 

also you have to learn to do what 

a Wolf Cub does every day in 

his work in the Six, and that is to D.Y.B., and 

" play in your place, and play the game." 

QUICK AT SEEING 

Well, it requires a lot of practice both for your- 
self and for your pony before you can play well 
enough to take part in a match. So Hercules and 
I practised hard, and learnt polo together. 

While I learnt to hit the ball as we galloped 
along, Hercules also learnt that it was his business 




THE HOCKEY SMILE. 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 



75 



to take me wherever the ball was going as fast as 
ne possibly could. 

So he got to be very quick at seeing the ball 
and at turning to follow it, and very often his 
sharp eyes would find it through a cloud of dust 
before I saw it for myself, and away he would go 
carrying me to it. 




HERCULES CARRIED A LOAD AS BIG AS HIMSELF. 

In this way we became great friends and play 
comrades. Then sometimes we went out for 
paper chases. One of our officers would ride out 
into the country carrying a sack full of scraps of 
paper with him ; he would then go across the 
country over ditches and walls, under trees, 
through canals, etc., dropping paper as he went 
along. 



76 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

After giving him a fair start the rest of us rode 
after him, following the trail of paper, galloping 
across the country, jumping the fences, losing the 
trail and finding it again, till we either caught him 
up, or he got home first. 

It was grand fun for all, but I do believe that 
Hercules enjoyed it more than anyone else. It 




HERCULES JUMPING WALLS. 



was such a jolly change from his old life as a 
grass-cutter's beast of burden. 

ENTER DICK 

Dick. Yes, he was a rum *un. 

A big, well-shaped, chestnut-coloured horse, 
with an ugly old head and rather a small eye. 
Well — that is an important point. You can tell 
a lot about a horse from his eye, just as you can 
of a man by his chin. 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 



77 



A man with a big chin is generally a man with 
a big will of his own, while one with a small chin 
is only a silly ass. So, too, a horse with a sleepy 
eye is generally a quiet old thing, while one with 
a big, open eye is a jolly, honest beast ; but 
beware of the animal with a small eye — he is 
often nasty- tempered, cunning, and sulky. Well, 
although Dick had a small eye, he wasn't really 





BIG CHIN OR SMALL CHIN ? 
WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE ? 

nasty-tempered — at least, not always ; he was 
more short-tempered — that is, he would get angry 
if you did anything that he didn't like. 



11 don't you dare to touch my heels ! " 

For instance, he grew some rather long hair on 
his heels. He was touchy about this. He rather 
fancied himself with hairy heels ; I didn't. So I 
told my Indian groom to pull or cut these hairs. 
But Dick wouldn't allow it. He looked out of 
the corner of his little eye and put back his ears 
as much as to say, " Don't you dare to touch my 



78 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

heels," and lifted one of them ready to give a 
sledge-hammer back-kick to the man if he tried 
it on. So we sent for a farrier who was accustomed 
to shoeing horses and to playing about with their 
feet. He came with his mate, and went into the 
stable to argue the point with Mr. Dick. 

Dick at once saw that they had got some game 
on against him, so he resolved to have a row. He 




BEWARE OF THE HORSE WITH THE SMALL EYES. 

edged away from them into the corner of his stall 
and prepared to fight them. He saw that they 
expected him to lash out and kick at them, so he 
made up his mind to spring a surprise on them, 
and, instead of kicking backwards, he swung round 
and reared himself up on end to pounce down on 
them and strike them down with his fore feet. 



CAUGHT HIS HEAD A CRACK 

But he had forgotten one thing. There was a 
rather low beam across the top of his stable, arid 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 79 

when he reared up he caught his head an awful 
crack on the beam, and he dropped down in a 
heap on the floor — stunned. The farrier cried, 
11 Come on, Jim, let's clip him while he's 
silly ! " 

So they tied his feet together, in order that if 
he came to he could not strike out at them, and 
they then cut his hair quite comfortably. 

Another time I rode Dick over to see a friend 
of mine, and when I got there the groom put him 
in the stable, and I went into my friend's house. 
Suddenly there was a terrible hullabaloo out in 
the stable-yard. We ran out, and what do you 
think ? Dick had killed the groom ! 

The man had evidently come into the stall sud- 
denly and had startled the horse, who at once 
let out a back-kick which had caught the poor 
fellow in the stomach and had done for him. 
Had the man been a Scout or a Wolf Cub, he 
would have noticed the horse's small eye, and 
would have been very careful in dealing with him. 

TAUGHT HIM TRICKS 

And, mind you, Dick was not bad at heart. He 
was a great friend of mine, and I taught him lots 
of little tricks. For one thing, he would stand 
for hours without moving away if I left him with 
orders to stop there. On one occasion this was 
jolly useful to me. One of the horses of my 
squadron had broken away from the camp in the 
night and disappeared. This horse, A 44, was 



80 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

one of the best horses in the regiment, and was 
ridden by the Regimental- Sergeant-Major, so 
everybody was in a great stew about his disappear- 
ance, especially the Colonel. 

So I started off on Dick to try and find him. 
It had been raining and snowing all night, so I 
soon found his tracks and followed them, some- 
times in mud, sometimes in snow. They led me 
off into wild country among the mountains, often 
over rocky and stony ground where tracking was 
most difficult. 

After some hours of work and after going over 
some miles of country, the tracks led straight up 
a mountain where it was much easier for me to 
go on foot. So I got off Dick and told him to 
wait there, and off I went scrambling up the rocks 
and gullies until at last I was rewarded by finding 
old A 44, shivering with cold, bleeding from 
many cuts, having evidently been terrified out 
of his life. It took a long time to get him down 
the mountain side again, but when at last we 
reached the foot there was Dick calmly awaiting 
us — and I was soon riding home in triumph 
leading my prize. 

Poor A 44 never got over it — he was never the 
same horse again, and at last got a bad fever and 
died. But the Colonel was very pleased with 
what Dick and I had done in getting him back 
— and it was jolly lucky for me later on. 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 81 



MY " FIRST CHARGER " 



It was in this way. 

Dick was my " first charger. " That is, although 
he was my own property, I was not allowed to 
use him for any purpose except for riding on 
parade or just quiet riding about. I must not 
drive him in harness nor ride him hunting. 

Well, one day when I was riding him near our 
camp I saw a fine wild boar scampering across the 
fields. This was too much for me. I called to my 
Indian groom to hand me my spear, and off I 
went on Dick, forgetting all rules and orders, to 
catch that pig. After a great gallop we got close 
up to him, and I reached forward to lunge the 
spear into him when Dick stopped short and 
stood up on end. He very nearly sent me flying 
to the ground by doing so. The reason for this 
was that among other tricks I had taught him was 
that whenever I made a low bow to anybody he 
was to rear up on his hind legs and paw the air. 
So, when I stooped over to stab the boar, Dick 
thought I was bowing, so he played his part, too, 
and stood up ! 

The pig might easily have escaped us while 
Dick was playing the ass, but the pig was clever, 
and he said to himself, " Now's my time to kill 
those two," so instead of running away he turned 
and came for us. 



82 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 



MY SPEAR MISSED 



As he rushed at us I prepared to receive him on 
my spear, but as I had to lean over to do this, up 
went Dick again, my spear missed, and the boar 
got a good cut with his tusks into Dick's hind 
legs, fortunately missing his stomach. A second 




PIGSTICKING OR PIG-STUCK ? 



time the same thing happened. But when he 
came at us yet again I gave Dick such a dig in 
the ribs with my spurs as made him jump into 
the air instead of rearing, and as the boar passed 
under him I jabbed the spear down into his back 
and killed him. 

But the awful thing was how to face the Colonel 
and explain these wounds in my first charger's 
legs. 



HORSES I HAVE OWNED 83 

" Please, sir," I said, " a boar attacked me, and 
I had to defend myself ! " 

" Yes, that's all very well," said the Colonel, 
" but how did you come to have a spear in your 
hand when riding your first charger ? Let me 
see, isn't that the horse that helped you to catch 
A 44 when he ran away ? Yes. Well, youngster, 
don't go riding your first charger after pig again." 



CHAPTER IX 



MY MARE " HAGARENE " 



Her name was Hagarene. Funny name for a 

mare, wasn't it ? 

Bill Beresford, a friend of mine, never could 

get it right, and so for short he always called her 

11 Gangrene/ ' which is the name of a horrible 

disease. 

But Hagarene wasn't a bit horrible — she was 

a real beauty. It was out in India that I got her. 
I had been home ill, and had 
just got back to India to find 
that my regiment was on its 
way to the front in Afghanistan 
— away up beyond the North- 
West corner of the country. 
I had to get myself a horse, 
hagarene. ^j t0 f \\ ow t h e regiment as 

quickly as I could. 

I saw an advertisement in the newspaper of 
this mare for sale owing to her owner going home 
to England. So I telegraphed that I would buy 
her, and asked for her to be sent by train to meet 
me at the end of the railway which led to Afghani- 
stan. I got there the same day, and, of course, 

8 4 




MY MARE " HAGARENE " 



85 



was awfully anxious to see what she looked like. 
When she was taken out of the horse-box she 
looked a beauty, just as her master described her 
in his letter to me. 

He also said : " You must be careful when 
mounting her as she is rather difficult, but once 
you are on her back she is excellent. 




BOTH OF US TIRED AFTER A LONG FIELD DAY. 



KEEN TO GET A RIDE 

Well, she had been for two days boxed up in 
the train, and had had no exercise, and so I 
expected that she would be more than ever 
difficult to get on to. However, I was very keen 
to get a ride on her to see what she was like, so 
we put the saddle on her, and very gingerly I 



86 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

prepared to mount. After much fondling and 
sugar-feeding I suddenly and quietly skipped on 
to her back. Not a move ! She didn't seem to 
mind in the least. I thought to myself, " Oh ! it 




THERE WAS A SORT OF EARTHQUAKE. 

is just some clumsy beggars find her difficult. It 
only wants a little * horse-sense ' and it will be 
all right.' ' M'yes ; I got to learn more of her 
very soon ! 

However, now that I was successfully in the 
saddle I thought we could go for a short ride, 



MY MARE " HAGARENE " 87 

and so I gave her a hint to go on. But she stood 
absolutely stock still. " My dear," I said to her 
inwardly, " I want you to go on, please," and 
gave her a gentle squeeze with my legs. No 
result ; she just stood like a rock. " My dear" 
I said with greater firmness, " / want you to go on. 
Uyou hear ? " and I gave her a punch with both 
heels to show her that I meant it. 

I don't quite know what happened — there was 
a sort of earthquake, and I suddenly found myself 
standing on my feet on the ground facing her, and 
the mare standing still looking at me. I never 
quite knew how I got there. There was no 
desperate struggle about it ; I was simply landed 
there, by her, without any effort. It showed me, 
however, that she knew more than I did about 
how a rider could be chucked. She had performed 
what is known as a " buck." 

WENT LIKE A LAMB 

So I had her exercised for a bit at the end of 
a long rope, so as to work off her energy and 
temper ; and then I tried again. This time 
there was no doubt about her dislike to anyone 
getting on her back. She fought and struggled 
with the groom who was holding her head while 
I was bobbing around looking for a chance of 
nipping on to her. At last I managed it, and sat 
very tight, expecting another earthquake ; but 
not a bit of it ! This time she was quiet the 
moment she found I was securely in the saddle 



88 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

and directly I asked her to go on she went like a 
lamb, and was delightful to ride. 

But that was her drawback ; whenever I wanted 
her there was a tremendous tussle between her 
and her groom. It was only a week or two later 
I found out the secret. 

I was away scouting by myself a long way from 
the rest of the column when by accident I dropped 
my revolver. So I jumped off to pick it up. 
Then suddenly the awful thought occurred to me, 
" How shall I ever be able to mount her again, 
with nobody to hold her head ! " 

Well, something had to be done, so I plucked 
up my courage and tried to do it without any help. 

GO AT IT BOLDLY 

I have often noticed that if you have some 
difficult or dangerous job to do, it is not nearly 
so bad as it looked when you come to do it. The 
more you look at a nasty job the less you'll like it. 
Go at it boldly and it comes quite easily. So it 
did in this case. I got on quite easily. 

Hagarene did not show the slightest annoyance 
at my getting up. I tried it over again, and then 
discovered that she had no objection to my 
mounting ; what she did object to was anybody 
holding her head while I did it. So never again 
did I let the groom hold her, and she was always 
quite nice and friendly in consequence. 

Well, when I say that, I mean she was quite 
friendly with me. But once I wanted one of my 



MY MARE " HAGARENE " 89 

men to take a message for me, so I told him to 
jump on my horse and ride with it. He jumped 
on all right, but somehow Hagarene didn't like 
him, and she jumped him off in double quick 
time. 

Yes. She was that way. She had her likes 
and her dislikes. 

But she never was nasty to me after our first 
meeting, except once and that was — well, I think 
really that she forgot herself for the moment. 

THAT EARTHQUAKE STUNT 

We had just come in from a long field-day, men 
and horses tired and thirsty. It was my duty to 
see that the men rode their horses to the watering 
trough before taking them to the stables. I was 
sitting lazily on Hagarene, and she had had enough 
work to make her feel glad that the parade was 
over. Suddenly she performed that earthquake 
stunt again, shot me up out of the saddle so that 
I fell on to my hands on the ground while my feet 
were still up in the saddle. Then, just as before, 
she stood perfectly still, so that I pulled myself 
back into the saddle without having tumbled 
right off ! It was a near shave of being fined, 
because if an officer falls off his horse on parade 
he has to pay a fine to the Mess. But I was not 
fined this time because I did not come right off — 
my feet were never on the ground. 



go AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

AFTER THE WILD BOAR 

The thing that Hagarene loved was pig-sticking 
— that is, wild boar hunting. 

She was so fast and clever at galloping after 
wild boar on bad ground that she very nearly 
won the Challenge Cup for " Pig-sticking.' ' 

There were four of us in the race. Such ex- 
citement ! Twenty elephants carried the onlookers 
through the jungle. Suddenly a boar was seen. 
Away we went after him as hard as we could lick. 
Hagarene soon got ahead of the rest. She was 
so fast and keen. The pig dashed across open 
ground into a very thick, coarse bit of jungle, but 
I was pretty close behind him, and could just see 
him every now and then between the great tus- 
socks of grass six feet high. We were getting 
close upon him, and I got my spear ready to reach 
out and stick him. 

At that moment a sort of green hedge appeared 
in front, and almost as the pig disappeared through 
it, Hagarene leapt over it, and there, ten feet below 
us, was the shining surface of the river ! 

The pig went plump down under water, and 
Hagarene and I did the same with a tremendous 
splosh almost on top of him. Right down we 
went under water to any depth, and there was a 
lot of struggling, striking out, swimming in 
heavy clothes, hanging on to reeds, etc. 

At last I got out on the far bank and saw 
Hagarene clambering out, and then starting off 



MY MARE " HAGARENE " 



9 1 



as hard as she could leg it for camp. The pig 
turned back in the direction he had come, and I 
got home a funny-looking creature, covered with 
mud and water, and garlanded with green, trailing 
weeds ! 

Once I rode her in a great match between two 
of us officers and two Indian Rajahs. We were 
started off, all four of us, after a wild boar to see 
who could reach him first and spear him. My 
brother officer got away with a good lead, and 
Hagarene came next, and the two Indians behind 
me. And in that order we raced through the long 
grass and low bush that formed the jungle. 



GAVE US THE LEAD 

Suddenly my friend in front took a toss through 
his horse putting his foot in a hole. There was 




SHE COCKED HER EARS. 



92 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

suddenly a head-over-heels of man and horse, 
hoofs kicking about above the grass, and then they 
both scrambled to their feet again, rather shaken 
by the fall. 

But this gave the lead to Hagarene and me, and 
we could see the hairy back of the old boar crash- 
ing his way ahead of us through the grass and reeds. 
We were going at a tremendous pace, and so soon 
as Hagarene saw the enemy, she cocked her ears 
and put on an extra spurt to try and overtake him. 

Right well she did it ; inch by inch we gained 
upon him. The boar laid back his ears, and I 
could see him glancing now and then over his 
shoulder at us, trying his very utmost to keep 
ahead. 

But it was no good ; gradually Hagarene was 
overhauling him, and at last, with an extra effort, 
she got so close that I was able to reach out and 
make a thrust at him with my spear. But I was 
over-anxious ; the distance between us was just 
too great — the point of my spear missed him by 
an inch or two and struck the ground instead. 

However, we pressed on without a check, and 
again we got up to him ; but this time I waited 
so as to make sure, and then, when we were well 
on to him, I let him have it with all my force. 
The spear struck him all right, but it did not 
stick in. 

WHY I FAILED 

Then, to my horror, I saw that there was no 
head on the shaft ; it had broken off when I made 



MY MARE " HAGARENE " 93 

the bad shot and hit the ground. So I could not 
win the race, because the victory goes, not to the 
first man to get to the pig, but to the one who first 
draws blood. 

I therefore looked round for the other com- 
petitors. There they were, a long way behind, 
but still coming along. So I yelled to them to 
hurry up, and meantime I kept following the boar 
so that he should not get away. 

At last, one Rajah caught me up, and I showed 
him the pig, and he dashed on and drove his 
spear through him and put an end to a fine boar. 
It was one who had done a lot of harm in the 
villagers' fields. 

Then I said, " Well done, Rajah — I congratu- 
late you on your win." He could not believe 
that he had won the match till I showed him 
my broken spear, and then he was pleased ! 
Indeed, he was so pleased that he wanted to buy 
Hagarene at any price I liked to ask, because she 
was so much better than his own horse. But I 
did not want to part with so good a friend, and I 
would not sell her. 

Then the Rajah said : " But some day you will 
leave India to go home to England, and then I 
will buy Hagarene. " 

Years afterwards his words came true. My 
regiment was to leave India, and so our horses 
were advertised for sale, Hagarene among them. 
Then came a telegram from the Rajah saying, 
" Why do you advertise Hagarene for sale ? She 



94 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

is my horse," and he came along shortly after- 
wards with a bag full of silver rupees and took 
my beloved Hagarene off with him. 

But he was a kind master and a good horseman, 
and I was very glad that later on he won the 
challenge cup for pig-sticking with Hagarene. 




THE RAJAH CAME WITH A BAG 
OF SILVER RUPEES. 



CHAPTER X 

CANOE TRAVELLING 

When I was in Canada I had to travel a good deal 
by canoe. You know where Canada is — away 
across the Atlantic at the top end of America. 
You know who the Canadians are by what they 
did so well in the Great War. They are brave 
and hardy men, of British birth, who have gone 
to live out in the great plains and backwoods of 
Canada and who sent their troops over to help 
our Army in delivering France from the Ger- 
mans. 

Their country is different from England because 
so much of it is wild forest and jungle in which 
the wild animals still roam at large ; and it is a 
difficult country to travel in because there are 
few roads or paths, and much of the bush country 
is impossible for a man on foot to get through. 

But there are everywhere in the forests great 
numbers of streams and lakes, and so the regular 
way of travelling there is by canoe. Ordinary 
boats would not do. For one thing, they would 
be difficult to make where men have few tools 
and no nails, and also they would probably draw 
too much water in the shallow, rocky torrents 

95 



96 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

through which the travellers have to make their 
way. 

So the backwoodsmen use canoes which they 
build for themselves out of wood that grows on 
the spot. They make a strong framework of the 
lightest wood they can find, and over this they 
put a covering made of strips of bark taken from 
the birch trees. 




CANOE TRAVELLING. 



These strips are not nailed on to the frame but 
stitched on with string that is made from the long 
roots of the spruce trees, and the seams are made 
watertight with gum, which is the juice out of 
the fir trees growing round. 

CAN PASS OVER SUNKEN ROCKS 

These canoes are beautifully light, and so as 
they float on the top of the water they can pass 
over sunken rocks and carry people through the 



CANOE TRAVELLING 97 

rapids. But very often the streams are so blocked 
with rocks that it is impossible to get a canoe 
through them. So then the canoeists have to get 
ashore and carry their canoes, together with all 
their camp kit, blankets and cooking-pots, over- 
land until they get to clearer water again. For 
this purpose a light birch bark canoe is useful. 
It would be impossible for them to carry a heavy 
boat through the woods in the same way. 




A PORTAGE. 



With a light canoe, the man puts it on his head 
and wears it like a hat, while his friend carries the 
baggage on his back, slung round his forehead 
with a broad strap called a " tompline." This 
way of going overland with boats and baggage is 
called a " portage.' ■ It is hard work paddling a 
canoe against a strong stream and then frequently 
having to get out and make a portage, but at the 



98 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

same time it is a very jolly life, and a healthy 
one. 

At the end of the day the travellers put up their 
camp and build a fire out of dead branches 
collected from the neighbouring trees. They cook 
their food and make a comfortable bed for them- 
selves out of sprigs of the pine- 
trees. For a house they use either 
a tent or a shelter made from logs 
and branches, which they call a 
" shack." A boy in Canada would 
be thought a fearful tenderpad if 
he could not build his own shack, 
make his own bed, build a fire, 
and cook his grub. So a Wolf 
Cub in Britain ought not to be 
behind his Canadian brother in 
doing these things. 

WHEN BOYS GET CAPSIZED 

The Canadian boy can, of course, 
paddle his canoe without upsetting 

) T coSld F no? k| and if lt should g et capsized, as 
cook grub for often happens, by sunken rocks or 
sudden rushes of water, the boy 
can swim like a duck, and the accident doesn't 
matter. So I hope that every Wolf Cub will 
practise as far as he can the art of managing a 
boat and especially swimming and diving, so 
that he will be as good as hs brother Cubs in 
Canada. 




THE 

WHO COULD NOT 



CANOE TRAVELLING 



99 



I remember, one day, when paddling our canoe 
across one of the lakes among the woods, we 
suddenly ran upon a sunken tree, and one of its 
branches pierced a small hole in the thin birch 
bark side of the canoe and the water began to 
pour in. While one of us plugged up the hole 
with his cap, the other paddled the canoe as fast 








MENDING THE CANOE. 



as he could to the nearest island, and when we gojt 
there the canoe was already half-full of water. 
We just reached it in time to prevent the canoe 
sinking, and got safely ashore. 

There we unloaded our baggage and turned 
the canoe over so that we could get at the hole 
from outside. It was only a small slit, which we 
were able easily to mend. My pal had a cut 



ioo AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

finger, and he took off the bandage from this and 
put it as a patch over the hole. He stitched it 
there with a few stitches of spruce root ; he lit a 
small fire and took some of the hard rosin from a 
neighbouring pine-tree, which he melted in the 
fire and then smeared all over the patch, and 
especially its edges. 

We launched the canoe to see whether it was 
watertight, and so soon as we found it was so, 
we put back our baggage, got into the boat, and 
continued our journey. The whole job of repair- 
ing our ship only took ten minutes, but it showed 
how quick and resourceful a backwoodsman 
can be. 



CHAPTER XI 

WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 
THE GENTLEMAN IN BLACK 

Just now I can hardly hear myself speak because 
of a lot of friends of mine who will go on talking 
without even a moment's pause to take breath. 
They are at it the whole day, from morning till 
night. 




CA-CAW. 



I can't imagine what they can find to talk about, 
but there they are, and they never stop. 

" Ca-caw, ca-caw, caw-ca ! " is what they say ; 
and there must be a lot of meaning in it, for my 
friends are a lot of rooks in the neighbouring trees, 
and rooks " never talk without caws," do they ? 

Just now they are building their nests, and they 



IOI 



102 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

take an awful lot of trouble over the job. On the 
ground below there are hundreds of sticks lying 
about, but they don't pick these up to build their 
nests with ; they fly away to distant trees and pull 
live twigs off them, and bring them back to make 
their nests. 

It is an awfully difficult job to start a nest in a 
tree-top waving about in the wind, and you want 
to get a single stick, which you carry in your 




TALKING ALL DAY. 

mouth, to lie across the fork of a branch till you 
can get more to pile on top of it. If that stick 
slips and falls, as it generally does, the poor rook 
doesn't go down and pick it up, but flies off to 
get another. So it takes a lot of time and trouble 
and patience to get a nest built. 

CROWDED WITH NESTS 

My trees are crowded with nests, but the rooks 
may not go and build in another wood close by 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 103 

where there is plenty of room. Who stops 
them ? 

Why, their brother rooks. If a pair of birds 
build their nest in a new place, the other rooks 
come out one fine day and pull it all down again ! 

They have their strict rules about it. And they 
have strict rules in other things too. 

In the nesting season they start out in the early 




UP IN THE TREES SO HIGH. 



morning two by two. I was awakened about five 
this morning by their flying past me as I lay in 
bed outside my house, and for a long time the 
procession went on, each pair going exactly the 
same line as the others, though not always in 
sight of each other. 

GO OUT IN FLOCKS 

When they are not nesting the rooks go out in 
big flocks, always starting at the same hour (indeed 



104 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

in some country places the villagers say they can 
tell the time by the flying of the rooks !), and always 
keeping the same direction, and going to the same 
fields day after day. They all fly at about the same 
height above the ground, not like other birds who, 
when in a flock, fly some low and some high. And 
they generally fly silently. But among them you 




A BII OF A MOUTHFUL. 



will hear one or two of them calling " Jack ! " 
" Jack 1 " But these are not rooks, they are 
smaller birds, and move quickly with their wings ; 
they are jackdaws who seem to like to go about 
with the rooks, like small boys marching alongside 
of soldiers. 

Another rule among rooks is that if they belong 
to one flock they are not to go and join another. 

There used to be a rookery in some old trees 
in Newcastle, not far from the Exchange. A pair 
of rooks who did not belong there thought that 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 105 

they would like to come and live in Newcastle. 
So they started to build their nest in the rookery. 
But every time they got it nearly finished the 
other rooks, who had been jawing at them all the 
time, came and pulled it down. 

So at last they went and sat up on the weather- 
cock of the Exchange building. They found that 
the weathercock, instead of swaying about in the 
wind like the top of a tree and making them feel 




WHAT A BIG TWIG. 



seasick, only moved round a little bit now and then. 
So they rather liked it, and started to build. As 
they were no longer in the rookery the other birds 
left them alone, and soon they had a lovely nest 
on the weathercock. 



CAME THERE TEN YEARS 



There they raised their young brood, and for 
ten years afterwards every year they rebuilt their 
nest, and brought up fresh families, till the 
weathercock was at last taken down. 



106 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

Rooks generally like to build their nests in 
elm trees. As you know, an elm tree is one of 
the biggest and handsomest of the English trees, 
but he has a nasty way of tumbling down when 
you least expect it. But rooks are clever beggars ; 
they seem to know long beforehand when a tree 
is going to fall, so if rooks give up building in a 
certain elm, even though they have used it for 
years, you watch that tree, and in a few months 
it will fall. They know. 

Then rooks will sometimes leave a rookery 
which they have used perhaps for twenty years, 
and start a new one in another wood without any 
special reason. 

FRIENDLY WITH WHITE PIGEONS 

People often try to get them to start nesting in 
trees where they want them, but the old black 
gentlemen will not be persuaded, though it is 
said that they will come to a place where white 
bantam fowls are kept. I don't know if it is true, 
but they are quite friendly with my white pigeons. 

Although they are such big birds and possess 
such big powerful beaks, they are not feared by 
other birds ; jackdaws or starlings very often fly 
about with them and feed with them. The only 
bird they don't like is a hawk, and I remember 
reading an account of how a tame hawk that was 
chained up in a garden was once violently attacked 
by a whole flock of rooks who had spotted him as 
they were flying over. They were only driven off 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 107 

by the owner of the hawk opening fire on them 
with his gun. 

Talking of that, rooks have a wonderfully keen 
sight for a gun. They don't mind a man coming 
near them, even if he is carrying a big stick, but 
if he carries a gun they spot it at once and are off 
in a great hurry. 

They are very clever birds and very interesting 
to watch, but I should like to know a little of their 
language and to understand even half of what they 
talk about. 

WITH A BROKEN WING 

Yesterday I found in the field close to my 
rookery a poor rook hopping about with a broken 
wing. Do you know what that meant ? He had 
done something wrong which the other rooks did 
not like, and they had held their Court of Honour 
on him and had punished him by breaking his 
wing. That is the way with rooks, and that is 
the awful punishment that they give — it is worse 
than killing the offender, because it means that 
he will in the end be killed by cats or foxes, being 
unable to get away. 

ABOUT PET BIRDS 

Several Wolf Cubs have asked me whether it 
is a good thing to keep pet birds. 

Well, I think it is, and yet sometimes I think 
it isn't. A fat lot of use is such advice you say. 
Well, it is this way. If you have a bird that is 
tame and happy it's all right ; you can't have a 



io8 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

nicer pet. But if it is a miserable prisoner in a 
cage always wanting to get out and be free then 
it is cruelty to keep it. 

I have often wanted to keep birds of different 
kinds, and have tried to catch them when they 
were very young so as to get them accustomed to 
tame life before they had ever known what it was 
to be free and wild. 

Ill tell you of my last two. 




CHUPPER CHUPPER — CHUPPER. 



One day when I was out fishing, a snipe sud- 
denly came flying near me, sounding her alarm 
cry, " Chupper — chupper — chupper." I walked 
on a few paces, and she suddenly darted down 
about twenty yards in front of me, and there 
carried on such a rough and tumble on the grass 
that I thought she was fighting with another bird, 
so I went forward to see. But no, she was alone 
there, and as I came near she sprang up and 
darted away across the stream, and dropped among 
some rushes in the field. 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 109 

a snipe's artifice 

So I sat down and kept very still, and waited to 
see if she would do anything further. Sure enough 
after about five minutes she suddenly flew up, and 
silently flew about thirty yards and dropped again. 
I carefully marked the spot by noting a bush, a 
post, and a tree in line with it. Then I crossed 
the stream, and got on the line of these objects, 




IN DISTRESS AMONG THE GRASS. 



and walked carefully towards the place. Up 
jumped my friend in a tremendous flurry, crying 
her alarm call, and tumbling on to the ground, 
and floundering about on the grass. This is what 
many wild birds do when they want to lead you 
away from their nest. I had been taken in by 
this sort of thing before, so I did not look at her 
antics till I had pointed my finger at the spot 
where she had got up, and keeping my arm 
stretched in that direction I was able to take my 
eyes off it to watch her. 




no AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

When I had amused myself over her efforts to 
lead me on in her direction, I walked very care- 
fully forward to the spot to which my finger was 
pointing, where the nest ought to be. But I 
could not see it at first glance, 
so in order to mark the place I 
put my hat on the tuft of grass 
where I had expected to find 
it, and then carefully searched 
every tussock round it. But 
not a sign of a nest could I 
see. Then I noticed two or 
three little round lumps of dirt, 
which looked as though sheep 
a FVNNY little chick had lately been there, but it 
Tile »S??E! ™t DY was a hay crop, and no sheep 

eVes and big feet. J r» r 

could have been grazing there. 
So I examined the dirt a little more closely, and 
taking one lump in my hand I found it was a tiny, 
fluffy little snipe chick. A dear little thing, with 
bright beady black eyes, with rather large feet 
for its size, but not the very long beak that it 
would get later on, and its coat a lovely pattern 
of dark and light brown, like a tortoiseshell cat. 

LIKE LUMPS OF DIRT 

It was wonderful how the little beggars had 
learnt to tuck themselves down, and to squat 
motionless like lumps of dirt when danger was 
near. I have seen young plover do exactly the 
same, so that if you were not on the look out for 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS in 

them you would easily pass them by, or even 
tread on them, before discovering that they were 
live birds. 

My little friend was shivering with cold when 

I took him up, and finding that concealment was 
no longer any good, he gave out a tiny little 

II cheep — cheep " of alarm. But very soon he 
found that my hand was warm, and he snuggled 
down into it quite contentedly, with only his head 
sticking out, and he stopped complaining, and 
made himself quite at home. So leaving his 
brothers and sisters where they were I took him 
back with me. I caught some small slugs and 
grubs, chopped them up, and put them into his 
mouth, and he swallowed them down readily. 

When I got home I made him a warm nest in 
my stocking, and put it inside a warm box. Once 
in the night I heard him singing again, so I visited 
him, and found he had got outside his nest and 
was shivering, so I warmed him up in my hand, 
and then put him into his nest again, and he 
coiled down in it very contentedly. Next morning 
when I went to call him he was outside the nest 
— dead. He had died of cold, poor little chap. 
It doesn't do to take the very young bird away 
from the mother's care. 

HAD A TAME PARTRIDGE 

So next time I was wiser. This time it was a 
little partridge that I caught. 

In India you very often see a native walking 



ii2 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

about followed by a tame partridge. I wanted to 
have one too. 

I was walking along a path the other day with 
my dogs when suddenly one of them made a 
dash into the grass with an eager yelp, and out 
dashed a big rat in front of him. But the hunt 
was a short one. The rat ran up the bank and 
popped into a hole, and so escaped. 




HIS PARTRIDGE RUNNING AFTER HIM LIKE A DOG. 

But there was some excitement still among the 
dogs. My steady old retriever, Bessie, even 
showed a sudden interest, and stood like a rock 
with her nose close to a tuft of grass, and her eye 
glancing at me as though saying, " Here he is, 
just at the end of my nose." So I swizzled about 
in that bit of grass and out ran a little wee partridge 
chick. I had no difficulty in catching him, and 



WILD BIRDS AND PET BIRDS 113 

though he did not quite like it at first he very 
soon settled down to sitting contentedly in my 
hand, looking about him with his bright eyes, 
and wondering what was going to happen next. 

He had evidently got lost, and though perhaps 
he did not know it he was very nearly becoming 
dinner for the rat. 

So I took him home with me. 

In the meadows I had a motherly old hen in a 
coop who was looking after two chicks. One was 
her own, the other a little dark-brown duckling. 
So I now added the small partridge to her family 
hoping that she would keep him warm under her 
flurry feathers at night, and show him what to eat 
in the daytime. Birds are said not to be able to 
count higher than two, so I thought this old hen 
would never notice that she had three chicks 
instead of two to look after. But she did. When 
we came next morning to see how the little family 
were getting on, we found poor little partridge 
lying dead, with his head bashed in by the beak 
of the old hen. She didn't want this addition to 
her family ! 



CHAPTER XII 

WHO IS RIGEL ? 

Well, Rigel is a wonderful fellow. He is very 
bright and jolly, with a merry twinkle about him ; 
but he lives an awfully long way off. And yet 
any Wolf Cub who wants to can see him any day 
of the week — or rather any night, if there are no 
clouds about, for Rigel is a star — the biggest 
known star in the heavens. 

When you become a Scout, you will have to 
know about the stars, so that you can tell the time 
by them or find your way by them when moving 
about at night. So you should try to learn some- 
thing about them now, in readiness for the time 
when you are a Scout. 

THE POLE STAR 

When finding your way by day or night, the first 
thing you want to know is in which direction the 
North is. If you have a compass with you, of 
course, this is quite simple ; the needle indicates 
the North, and you can easily read your map by 
holding the top of it towards the North. In the 
diytime you have the sun which rises in the 

114 



WHO IS RIGEL? US 

East, and is due to be South at midday, and sets 
in the West. 

But what are you going to do at night ? Some- 
times you have the moon, and he is of some help 
to you, but the best fellow in the sky for your use 
is the North Star. Now this is how you find the 
North Star. 

There is a group of stars called the Great Bear, 
and so soon as you get to know that by sight you 





<=^5^£ ^v yw 


TJ 


^^a? 


* * 

THE DIPPER IS A SECOND 
NAME GIVEN TO THE 
CONSTELLATION OF THE 
GREAT BEAR. 


* * 

A THIRD NAME FOR IT IS THE 
PLOUGH. 



will always be able to find the North Star, because 
two of the stars point straight at him. 

Above are two plans of the group, or constella- 
tion as it is called, of stars which form the 
Great Bear. 

Some people call it the Dipper, because the 
shape somewhat resembles a dipper or saucepan. 
Others call it the Plough, because in shape it is 
also like a plough. It is least of all like a bear, 
because it supposes the bear to have a very long 
tail like a cat, which, as you know, a bear has not 
got ; below, however, is the animal as you have 
to imagine it so that it will fit into the constellation 
of the Great Bear. 



n6 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

The two right-hand stars of the Great Bear 
are placed one above the other, and if you follow 
the direction in which they point you will come 
to a bright star away by himself and he is the 
North Star, or Pole Star as he is called. 

He remains always due North, and all the other 
stars move round this one star in the course of 




IV & 

THIS SKETCH SHOWS A GREAT BEAR, DRAWN TO FIT 
INTO THE CONSTELLATION BEARING THAT NAME. 

the night, but he always remains in the same 
position. 

So long as you can see the Great Bear, you can 
always tell where to find the North ; but some- 
times it might not be visible, in which case it is 
as well to know of another constellation which 
also points out the North. The group of stars I 
refer to is that which is called Orion. 



WHO IS RIGEL? 117 

ANOTHER CONSTELLATION 

Now Orion is another constellation which is 
easy to find once you know what he looks like. 
He is in the southern part of the sky, whereas the 
Great Bear is generally overhead or to the north- 
ward. 

He is supposed to represent a hunter with his 
belt on and a sword hanging from it. 

Now the line in which that sword points runs 
roughly North and South. 

Like the Great Bear, Orion has other names 
besides the one by which I have been calling him. 

THE THREE HUNTERS 

Among the natives of South Africa he is called 
Ingolubu, which means " the pigs," and the three 




THE STARS IN THE SWORD AND BELT OF ORION ARE NICKNAMED 
BY THE NATIVES OF SOUTH AFRICA, AS " THREE 
HUNTERS RUNNING AFTER THREE PIGS." 

stars forming his belt are supposed to be three 
hunters running after the stars in the sword, 
which are the three pigs. 

In other countries the constellation is also called 



n8 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

the Three Old Maids running after Three 
Bachelors. 

But after all this comes the question : " Who 
is Rigel ? " 

Well, he is one of the stars in the constellation 
of Orion. His right-hand foot, as you look at him. 

Now, suppose somebody were to ask you which 
was the biggest star in the heavens, you would 
probably, if you were a tenderfoot, say that of 
course the Sun is the biggest. 




IN SOME COUNTRIES ORION IS GIVEN THE TITLE OF 

You would be quite right in saying that the 
Sun is the star which looks the biggest, but that 
is because he is much nearer to us than the others. 
As a matter of fact, it would take about 20,000 
suns to make a star as big as Rigel, and it would 
take 6,640,000,000 of our earth to do it. 

So you can imagine what an enormous size 
Rigel is. 

At the same time, when you look at him, he 
is only like a pin point in the heavens, so you 



WHO IS RIGEL? 119 

can also imagine what a tremendously long way 
off he is. 

To give you an idea of this distance. Supposing 
somebody in Rigel were to flash a light to us, we 
should have to wait 466 years before that flash 
reached our eyes, and that is rather longer than 
most of us can wait. 

You know how fast a flash of light travels, 




" THREE OLD MAIDS RUNNING AFTER THREE BACHELORS." 

almost simultaneously, and yet it would take 
466 years for that flash to get here, therefore, 
Rigel must be millions of miles away from us. 

On the first clear night after you have read this, 
look out at the sky when it is dark and see if you 
can spot the Great Bear. He will be high up and 
towards the North. 

Then, when you have found him, follow the 
direction of the two pointers till you see the Pole 
Star. He is not very big, but is exactly in line 



120 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

with the two pointers ; you cannot miss him, 
and he will always show you which is the North. 

Then look Southward, and see if you can 
recognise Orion with his belt and sword, and 
Rigel in the right lower corner, millions of miles 
away from us. Talking of millions, have you any 
idea what a million amounts to ? It is a very 
large number and is difficult to grasp all at once. 
Supposing you started to count the beats of your 
pulse, or the seconds of a watch, do you know 
how long it would take to count a million of them ? 

If you set to work and counted all day without 
stopping for food, and all night without going to 
sleep, you would have to count all through nearly 
twelve whole days. 

WORTH 



•*• 



flORTHOP ^ 



POLt STAR 



* * 



* . 



* 
* 



t 



* 



TH6 



^■RIGEL 



HOW TO FIND THE POLE STAR THB CONSTELLATION OF ORION, 

FROM THE GREAT BEAR. SHOWING RIGEL. 



CHAPTER XIII 

FIRE-LIGHTING BY NATIVES 

Some Wolf Cubs find it hard work to learn all 
the things that will, later on, make them into good 
Scouts and useful men for their country. But 
you have a much easier time than some of the boys 
I know of who live in wild countries Overseas. 

Look at a Zulu boy ! When he is beginning to 
grow up he is put through a very hard examina- 
tion to see whether he is fit to become a warrior 
for his tribe. He is painted white with a kind of 
stain that he cannot wash off in less than a month, 
and is given an assegai (or small spear), armed 
with which he is sent off to live in the bush by 
himself until the paint has worn off. 

If anybody should see the boy whilst he is still 
white, they will kill him. So he has to hunt game 
for food with his one assegai. If you try it for 
yourself, you will find that to stalk up to a rabbit 
and spear him takes a bit of doing. 

Then the boy has to skin the animal, using his 
assegai as a knife, and from the skins he makes his 
blanket in which to sleep at night, sewing it 
together with string made from the sinews of the 
animal. 

121 



122 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

ROOTS AS FOODS 

He has to know which kind of wild fruits, roots, 
or leaves are good for food. If he does not under- 
stand this, he will probably eat the wrong kind 
and be poisoned. 

Then he has to cook his food. But as he has 
no clothes on, and consequently no pockets in 
which to carry match-boxes, he has no matches. 




THE BORNEO NATIVE MAKES FIRE THE RED INDIAN AND BOY SCOUT 
BY SAWING ON A LOG WITH A METHOD OF FIRE-LIGHTING. 

PIECE OF WHIPPY CANE. 

What would you do if you were in his place ? 

Well, his way of getting over the difficulty is to 
find a piece of hard stick and drill a hole with it 
in a piece of soft wood, and by twirling it rapidly 
between his hands he manages to make sparks, 
which then set light to dry grass or the lining of 
the bark of trees, and from this he makes his fire. 

It is a very long way from South Africa to 



FIRE-LIGHTING BY NATIVES 123 

Australia — across thousands of miles of ocean. 
Before we came with our ships, there was no way 
of communicating between the two countries. 

Yet, when you get to Australia, you find that the 
natives there had many of the same customs and 
many of the same dodges that were practised by 
the savages of South Africa. 




THE AUSTRALIAN BOYS LIGHT A FIRE BY TWIRLING A STICK IN 
SOFTER WOOD. 

Just as in South Africa the boys of Australia 
were painted white and made to prove themselves 
brave and strong by going out into the desert to 
shift for themselves. Part of their training, as 
children, had been to track every kind of animal 
or bird by its footmarks ; even such small creatures 
as little lizards, rats, mice and spiders. 

FOOTMARKS OF A SPIDER 

Have you ever looked at the footmark of 3 
spider ? If not, you will have to keep your eyes 
very much open to find it. 



124 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

But boys who had been trained to such accurate 
tracking found it quite easy to follow up the spoor 
(foot-tracks) of any animal to its lair and there to 
kill it for eating. 

But they, too, like the Zulus, did not carry 
matches, as there were no such things in their 
country, but they had to make fires, and this they 
did just in the same way as the Zulus — that is, 
by rubbing sticks into softer wood. 

Go to India and you find that the same thing is 
done there, though it is usually carried out by 
two men instead of one. 

One of the men holds the spindle upright, with 
its point standing on a flat piece of wood, while the 
other pulls a string, which is twisted round the 
spindle, to and fro, causing it to twirl round so 
rapidly that it soon sends out sparks to light the 
tinder, or punk, placed below it. 

In Borneo, the natives have another way of 
carrying out the same idea for making fire. Here 
the man stands on a log of wood, which is raised 
an inch or so off the ground by a block placed 
underneath it, and, taking the two ends of a long, 
whippy piece of cane in his two hands, he saws 
it rapidly to and fro under the log and so it starts 
to burn. 

RED INDIAN METHODS 

The Red Indians of North America also have 
their method of fire-lighting, which is very much 
practised by the Boy Scouts. 

In this case, the boy takes the spindle of hard 



FIRE-LIGHTING BY NATIVES 125 

wood and holding it upright with one hand, the 
palm of which is protected by a metal or stone 
shield, he twists it rapidly round by means of a 
bow whose string is twisted round the spindle. 




126 AN OLD WOLF'S FAVOURITES 

The point of the spindle then works its way 
into a board of soft wood, which the boy holds 
in place with his foot. 

A little slit at the side of the board leads to the 
hole made by the spindle, and the hot ash which 
comes away from the wood falls into this small 
opening and there sets fire to the tinder which 
the boy has placed in it. 

So a fellow who has once learnt this way of 
making fire, and knows which kind of wood to 
use (for it is not all kinds of wood that will make 
sparks readily), can go out into the backwoods, 
without having to carry a match-box with him, 
and can keep himself warm or cook his grub at 
any time he would wish by lighting his fire in the 
backwoods way. 

USE SMALL CHIPS 

When lighting a fire out of doors, begin with 
very small chips or twigs of really dry dead wood 
lightly heaped together, and a little straw or paper 
to set light to it ; above this should be put little 
sticks leaning together in the shape of a pyramid, 
and above this bigger sticks similarly standing 
on end. 

When the fire is well alight, bigger sticks can 
be added, and finally logs of wood. 

The great point about a cooking fire is to get a 
good pile of red-hot wood-coals, and if you use 
three large logs they should lie like the spokes of 
a wheel, with their ends in the fire, so that as they 
burn they can be pushed farther into the fire. 

The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England. William Brendon & Son, Ltd. 



